Enemy Mine
by atheistbasementdragon
Summary: Branch story from God Rising: Climb is being guarded by Zesshi Zetsumi, a conflicted figure of hateful heritage and hopeful buried optimism, how will a simple relationship of hostage holder and hostage, change the fates of both, and touch the fates of nations.
1. Through Enemy Eyes

**AN: Early looks at chapters are available through the author's discord server: /hJrfday**

**Also available on discord: Audio chapter readings, fan art, and more.**

_...Kami Miyako Prison, the day after Zesshi's introduction (C42 'God Rising')_

Climb was physically comfortable, but he was mentally agitated. Zesshi had hammered the ever loving shit out of him, and even with the healing potion, knowing his body was whole again, it was embarrassing, it was frustrating, and it could even be called terrifying. How could he protect the princess if he couldn't protect himself?!

He shook his head and got up, they...or rather Zesshi, had left him a practice sword, so he got to using it, he drew the outline of a body on the wall, and tried to strike the same place again and again and again. The constant repetition creating muscle memory that would be faster than the mind itself. He practiced his thrusts, he practiced his spinning slash, he practiced strike after strike without flinching at the ache in his muscles, forever beating against the wall of his innate limitations.

He took a break only to drink water, and then he got down to do pushups, and that was how Zesshi found him. He didn't look up when she entered, though he could feel her smirk as she closed the door behind her.

She watched him for a few seconds, and then sat down on his back with one leg folded over the other, the sudden weight almost caused him to collapse, but he wanted to wipe that smirk from her face, so he stabilized himself and groaned out pushups without pause until his body simply could not lift itself anymore, and he fell in a heap, and she remained seated all the way down, she got up with a laugh and seated herself in a chair, he heard her set something down on the table, and he rolled over on his back with a panting sigh and looked up at her.

She gave a little clap that might have been sarcastic.

"Still weak huh?" She asked with disappointment.

"I guess so. But I won't stop!" He snapped out.

"Good. Get strong enough, and I'll let you have me." She grinned, and all he could do was roll his eyes and slowly get up, when he did, he saw there was a covered tray on the table, she lifted the top of it off, and there was food underneath.

"You're bringing me food?" He asked, dumbfounded.

"You don't eat?" She asked with curious sarcasm.

"What, of course I eat, its just...you're not the usual type of jailer." He said.

"Because I'm so pretty?" She said, teasing him, and he rolled his eyes again, wondering why strong women seemed to enjoy poking him so much.

Before he could answer, she gestured to the table and said, "Just enjoy it, sit, eat. I can't exactly having you starve to death." She said bluntly.

He obeyed her instructions and poured two cups of one, though he cut his own with a half cup of water. The meal was simple, cooked chicken with a slight coating of cheese, a bowl with beans, and a bowl of greens. Filling, not fantastic, but nobody who had ever almost starved to death was ever tired of food thereafter when it came to them, so he ate gratefully while she drank and watched him in silence with her head resting on her upraised arm and elbow on the table.

When he finished his meal he said a simple 'Thank you'.

"Polite." She said.

"Shouldn't I be?" He asked.

She shrugged. "I admit I thought you'd be raging at me, cursing, swearing, promising to kill me, maybe try to make a break for the door since I know you saw I didn't lock it behind me when I came in."

Climb shook his head. "Disgraceful conduct from me is a disgrace to Princess Renner, besides, I"m not an idiot, I know I can't beat you, I know I can't outrun you, even if I could lock the door behind you and run, I'm quite sure you could just take the door apart and catch me."

"Good call." She said. "If you had, you'd have ended up in a less comfortable cell than this one, and if you'd succeeded, well the princess would be dead by sunset tonight." She added.

Climb was silent at that.

"Not a bad job on those pushups by the way." She said.

"Uh...thank you...I think." He said.

"I thought you'd collapse when I sat on your back." She said with a laugh.

"Of course not, I know I'm weak, but even I'm not that weak." He said.

"I suppose you're going to practice as soon as I leave again?" She asked him.

"I am." He said, "Boredom aside, I must grow strong enough to protect my princess." He said with stark determination.

"Alright, well I'll help you out with that." She said.

"How?" He asked dubiously.

She approached the drawing on the wall that he'd made for his strikes.

"Are you practicing chaining your attacks together?" She asked.

"Just perfecting the strike itself one at a time." He said.

She cocked her head and shrugged her shoulders, "Not a terrible way to go, but you need your attacks to work together in sequences, simply put, you are not competent on the defensive, you're just not strong enough." She saw the confusion on his face and let out a heavy sigh.

"OK look, I'm very strong, if someone attacks me, I can adequately defend against them for hours, long as I need to, long as I'm having fun, they'll tire themselves out and when I'm bored I can kill them easily. You can't do that, you have to be constantly on the attack, when in doubt, strike, you keep them on the defensive, and you have a chance, even against someone slightly stronger than yourself." She said, and approached the outline on the wall.

She took up the chalk he'd used and began to mark places on the body. "These are weak points, the places where anything short of top quality magic armor is useless. Throat, joints, eyes, groin. Chain your attacks to those points, and you'll force even the best opponent to have to interrupt themselves to stop the strike because a sword in the eye will finish almost anything." She said.

"I'll leave you to your practice, and see you tomorrow." She said and walked towards the door, taking up the tray.

He rose and bowed deeply at the waist.

"Thank you for the instruction, I will do as you say." He answered.

He did exactly that for the next four hours until he could barely move. He drank more water, then drew a bath for himself, grateful that there was a pump and a way to wash up, and went to sleep afterwards.

Zesshi made a point of returning to him the following day, just as he was waking up.

"Come with me." She said, and opened the door.

Uncertain, but remembering the scenes from terrible books he'd read where the jailer leads the prisoner outside, just to kill them and claim the prisoner was trying to escape, he hesitated.

"Let me guess." She said, "You've read those books too?" She asked.

He put one hand behind his head and looked down sheepishly. "Yeah..."

"Same. By the gods they're awful, who really does that?" She asked sarcastically and they shared an eyerolling moment.

"Well relax, this isn't that. I'm taking you out for some exercise. You're the princess's dog right, well dog's have got to be run or they'll get flabby." She said with a wicked smile that told him that her teasing was not intended to be as cruel as it might have otherwise been taken to be.

"You're not..." He began and she interrupted with a laugh.

"Worried that you're going to try to escape?" She fixed him with a death stare.

"That would piss me off." She said.

"Ahhh..." He said hesitantly.

Her face returned to its bland neutrality. "No, I'm not worried you'll try to escape, or take a hostage, or do anything stupid, you're no match for me or any of the hundred ways I could kill you before you could even regret the choice, so with that understood, do you want to come out and get some air in the court yard or do you want to stay in your room all day?" She asked bluntly.

"I'll come outside." He said.

"Good boy." She said, as if speaking to a dog.

"Why me...why always me?" He wondered aloud as he followed the laughing Zesshi.

The courtyard where he was held was very large, he had seen that from the window in his room, he had a very good view of what lay below, the stone walls were well built and clearly maintained with care, there were towers at equally spaced intervals, and the area was busily trafficked by many people, all of whom appeared to be healthy and reasonably well dressed.

He got an up close look at that when, after a walk down a long winding spiral stairway, he exited a large oaken door and found himself in the sunlight again.

"You do live in a beautiful place." He said to Zesshi.

"Thanks I guess." She said with a disinterested shrug without looking back at him.

"OK, here is what you're going to do." She said and pointed to one corner wall. "Run to that corner, then turn left and run to that corner, then another left to that corner, then another left and past me. Just a complete loop, and do it till I get tired." She said.

"You mean till I get tired?" He asked.

"No." She said flatly, "Now move!" she said, and at the sharp command, he sprinted along the wall, past curious onlookers who wondered why the handsome young blonde boy was running so hard, he hit one corner, then another, then another, then another, then another, and finally he blew past Zesshi who was standing there with her scythe looking bored.

"Faster!" She snapped, "Is that how fast you'd move if your princess were in danger?!" She shouted at his back, and he ran harder. He ran and ran, and every time he came around again, she said, something critical about his ability to protect his princess, and he tried desperately to continue. He had no idea how long he'd been at it, as he ran along the opposite wall he saw her simply resting the butt of her scythe on the ground and spinning it around. People passed by and gave her a wide berth, she appeared disinterested and neither greeted others and nor was she evidently being greeted either. As he made the final turn towards her she shouted at him, "Oh no, Climb! Your princess is going to die, you have to hurry, don't you want to protect her!" It was all the motivation he needed, he felt like his lungs were on fire and his blood was acid consuming his flesh, but he didn't care, he sprinted the final stretch and collapsed just a foot beyond where Zesshi stood.

He lay on his back, sprawled out and looking up at the sky.

"Not bad for a weak little runt." She said as she bent over his prone body.

As he lay there looking up at her, he gave her a weak smile and raised his arm slowly and gave her a thumbs up.

"Ahhh...ahhhhh...ahhh...thanks...I think" He gasped out from on the ground.

"Zesshi...exactly what i this? Did you catch him trying to escape and beat him to a pulp?" A voice asked from behind her.

Climb turned his head to look past her to see the source of the voice. He saw a clear eyed man in fine robes with his hands held behind his back who was looking curiously over at the virtually immobile climb.

"Do you see any bruises Raymond? Any blood? Of course not. I just took the princess's dog out for a run, you've got to exercise dogs you know, or they'll get soft and fat." She said with a mixture of humor and annoyance.

"Can he get up?" He asked.

"Ask him." She said.

Raymond moved a little to one side.

"Can you get up, boy?" He asked.

Climb began to gingerly lift himself, rolling on to his front and pushing himself up to one knee, and bracing himself against the wall, he forced himself to stand.

"So you're going to live then." He said with a measure of sarcasm.

Climb took a better look at him, he appeared to be in his thirties, but there was a suspicion in him that the fellow Zesshi called 'Raymond' was in fact older, in his forties perhaps, he had a lean frame that spoke of considerable exercise and self discipline, he presented a favorable view.

"I will sir. Thank you." Climb huffed out, still leaning with his hand against the wall.

"I'm not a knight, and I'm not that old, you can call me by my proper title if you insist on formalities. I am Cardinal Raymond Zarg Lauransan, one of the leaders of the Slane Theocracy. If I remember correctly, your name is Climb, isn't it?" He asked.

"It is sir...ah...cardinal." Climb said, catching himself, before the impact of the title hit.

"Wait...Cardinal...leader's of the Slane Theocracy...so...are you why I'm...here?" He asked in disbelief.

"Me personally?" Raymond asked, "No, if I'm going to be blunt about it, I didn't like the operation that took you and I voted against it."

Raymond's voice was more than a little bit miffed as he relayed that bit of information.

"He's why I'm the one guarding you." Zesshi said, jerking a thumb in his direction.

"I...see. May I ask why that choice?" Climb asked.

Raymond chuckled, "Because she's absolutely awful about following orders." He said and Zesshi grinned as she took a water skin and handed it to the very thirsty Climb.

He waited until they nodded for him to proceed, and he tilted the skin up, tilted his head back, and he guzzled it down hard, the crystal clear sweetness of fresh clean water was like a godsend to the exhausted young man, and what he didn't finish drinking, he dumped over his head to cool him off. He shook is head thoroughly back and forth, casting off droplets of it.

"See, a dog." Zesshi said and gestured to Climb, causing him to blush and Raymond to laugh.

"Ahh...sorry..." Climb said awkwardly

"No no, its fine, I was a soldier for many years, I know how good it feels after hard training to have cool water poured over you. And I may be a leader, but I'm not so stuck up that I can't bear the thought of a droplet of water striking my robes."

"Forgive me, but...isn't following orders better than not following orders?" Climb asked.

Raymond's face turned regretful. "It should be, but not always, and if someone tells Zesshi to do something she isn't inclined to do already, well...she won't do it. Since she's as powerful as she is, nobody can make her, she obeys orders either because she wants to do what she's being told to do, or because she trusts the person giving the orders to have a good reason for it that she doesn't quite know yet. Given the circumstances, I prefer her way of thinking, so when I lost the vote, I lobbied to have her as your personal guard due to the 'significance of the operation' and that vote I won."

Zesshi snorted.

"But...how do you know which orders to follow and which not to?" Climb asked.

"You're a soldier aren't you?" Raymond asked, gesturing to the door leading back inside, and Climb obediently handed back the now empty water skin to Zesshi, and walked through the door, winding his way back up the stairs.

"Yes si-Cardinal." He replied.

"Serving the princess directly?" He asked rhetorically.

"Yes." Climb answered.

"You obey her every order?" He asked.

"I do." Climb replied.

"I heard a story awhile back, a report really, about a raid on a brothel, your name came up, rescued some poor women who had been forced into prostitution. That was good work." Raymond said.

"Thank you Cardinal." Climb said.

"Your princess coordinated that, didn't she?" He asked.

"Yes Cardinal." Climb said as they drew nearer to his room.

"If she'd ordered you to murder the girls you found there instead of rescue them, would you have obeyed?" He asked curiously.

Climb was stunned at the brutality of the question.

"I...no I couldn't do that?" He said, "And princess Renner couldn't ever order something like that, its not who she is."

"If she were the sort of person to give that order, would you follow her?" Raymond asked.

"No. I couldn't." He said.

"But you followed the King didn't you? By extension I mean." Raymond asked as Climb opened the door and stepped inside, holding it open for his jailer and the cardinal, who stepped in behind him.

"I suppose." Climb replied.

"Then...surely you know that kings all order the deaths of many more innocents than that, its unavoidable, being king requires a certain hardness, a willingness to make the cold decision that costs lives." Raymond said firmly. "I am guiding my country, well assisting in its guidance anyway, during wartime, I make decisions over a table here that will see men and women die who I have never met and who have never harmed anyone. I'm no different from the former King of Re-Estize, or the Sorcerer King I fight against, or the Emperor of Baharuth, or any other ruler, in that, all royal rulers are as brothers and sisters." Raymond argued.

Climb thought it over, Zesshi seemed disinterested, she simply put out a few cups and poured tea for herself and the cardinal, and put water at the table in front of Climb, more to busy herself through the boring part than to be polite.

"So you ask how you know what orders to follow and what ones to disobey, I think that question first has to be answered with the question of how do you know WHO you should follow and WHO you should obey. You say your princess is not bloodthirsty, that she cares for her people and no doubt think she'd be a good Queen to a country. So...if you're right, then following her, seems like a good idea. Even if she does give an order that sounds awful...you would trust that she has a good reason for it, wouldn't you?" He asked.

Climb nodded. "I suppose, I mean I can't imagine a good reason to just kill a bunch of helpless slaves, but I also don't have to worry about that, because she's the kind of princess who wouldn't do this, I have chosen the...right person to follow, as you said, Cardinal."

Raymond nodded, "Very good, but of course when we die and stand before the gods, can we say to them, 'I was ordered to do that thing, I was commanded to do that other thing, I had no choice but to obey, I was only following orders?' Do you think the gods would care for such excuses if we violated their will?" He asked.

"I don't know much about gods, but if I wouldn't accept that answer, I doubt any gods would either." Climb replied.

"Very good, now, if the gods wouldn't accept that answer after our deaths, and you would not accept that answer from a subordinate, why then would you accept such an answer from yourself?" He asked simply as he picked up the cup of tea and drank slowly.

Zesshi drank quietly and smirked a little bit as she watched Climb grow a little flustered.

"Ahh...I don't know what you mean?" He asked.

"Every man and woman is first and foremost accountable for their actions to themselves, then to their neighbors, community, nation, world, and the gods, in that order. You must understand that every action you take, you have to know that you can live with it forever, I was a soldier for many years, some in the past have called me a hero, and I sit serenely here because I did not destroy my conscience by my actions. Perhaps I made some bad calls, some choices I regret, but come down to it, and I did not sell my soul to vile impulses, if someone gave an order that ran counter to what I thought was right...I refused to follow that order." He said bluntly.

Climb thought it over for a moment and dropped a slice of lemon into his water, it splashed gently and the ripples went out from the center, struck the sides of the cup, back to the center, and back out to the edge of the cup again, repeating the cycle several times under his eyes.

"In the end, we have to make our own choices, for good or bad, and think for ourselves on what is right, and act accordingly, if we choose with care what course we follow, what leaders we obey, then we should seldom be faced with conscience trying moments where orders issued would turn us into monsters. And if there are no good leaders, then it falls to us to BECOME good leaders, even though we may have to live with the bad decisions of others, no matter how high we rise." He said with a sigh of frustration.

"You talk a lot Raymond." Zesshi said bluntly.

"Worth saying though." Raymond retorted and looked back over to Climb. "Zesshi is here as your guard because I trust her not to do anything stupid just because some idiot with rank tells her to do it, and just because someone is in charge, that does not mean they're not a complete moron totally unsuited to their position of authority in every conceivable way."

"Ahhh...I see." Climb said, then stood and bowed. "Thank you Cardinal for taking the time to speak with this humble...ahhh...well prisoner, and also, thank you for the decent treatment, it is better than I expected to receive while in the 'care' of the Slane Theocracy. If you will excuse me though, I'm sure I stink enough that the gods themselves would turn away, and so I need a bath." He said somewhat humorously.

"Of course." The Cardinal said, and stood, "Zesshi, come along, don't embarrass the boy by watching him bathe."

She finished her tea and set the cup down. "See you later cherry boy." She said with a grin and a little wave.

As the door was locked behind them and they descended the stairs, leaving a red faced Climb behind them, Raymond looked over his shoulder at Zesshi and said, "See, I told you that you'd find that one at least a little interesting."

"Yeah, just a little, not as boring as most." She said with a largely faux indifference just as they exited the tower door, and went their separate ways.

**AN: Well here is the first chapter of 'Enemy Mine' and I hope you enjoyed it. This story isn't quite so action heavy, but it does play in to an important event coming up, and its an opportunity to further develop characters that frankly rarely get much in the way of attention. I KNOW...I know...a few of you are like...'But...but...but God Rising! The war! What are you doing?! You're torturing us you sadist!'**

**Well the answer is simple. God Rising's format is shifting just a little bit. Instead of multiple perspectives outlining everything in every chapter, I'm giving more focus to one perspective at a time, which is much easier to write and lets me add in more details, and concluding that perspective with a lead in to the next. However, because of the sheer volume of material to present, it is NOW taking longer to write than it was before. I wrote the entire fall of Prart in about a half an hour to an hour. But now some chapters are taking 2-3 hours because I have to go back and check myself to make sure I didn't create any conflicts. **

**You'll STILL get lots of 'God Rising' material, I'm NOT taking multiple weeks off from it (when have I EVER done that?) I'm just building up the characters and the world a bit more with some additional material, as Taming of the Beasts is near its conclusion, I wanted new things to write about along the way to explore new concepts, under developed characters, and make the events that are going to take place shortly, make more sense. **


	2. An Ugly Realization

**AN: OK, here is chapter two. Hope you like it, this is an interesting take on things, we don't know much about Zesshi's personality, she's shown to be especially cruel in Jade Tatsu's master work, "Cardinal of Sin" but that is some license on his part because we're not told just how she views this kind of behavior, which means of course "I" am also taking license with her character...but it seems right to me. What do you think?**

Climb slept fitfully, the princess had come to visit him that night, and he was troubled by all that he'd heard. War, the scourge that had already ruined his nation once, and his golden princess was at the center of the storm once again, caught up in the machinations of the undead Sorcerer King that had utterly annihilated his nation's armies at the Katze Plains.

As he dreamed, his mind conjured the image of the undead carrying her away from him just for spite, and it woke him with a start, driving him to shoot straight up from his position on his back, gasping for breath and so drenched in sweat that he felt the need to change the sheets and take another bath, despite the late hour revealed by the pitch blackness he saw through his window.

He stood there pumping water into the tub and thinking over what he'd dreamt, he shook his head as if to shake the thought off like the water he'd cast from his hair after Zesshi had 'run him' into the ground. Strange and unknowable as the undead king seemed to be, pointless malice did not seem to be his way, so he dismissed the dream as just that...a dream, and slipped into the water to cleans the sweat from his flesh.

He looked his body over as he washed himself, he was covered in marks, bruises, scars, the results of the only two things that he had, stubborn training and loyal service, all for the sake of his princess. In a manner of speaking, he was quite proud of himself. He'd become the strongest fighter of the royal guards, save for men like the late Chief Warrior and his companion, Brain Unglaus. Easily Climb ranked as a top level gold adventurer...but then he'd topped off and had gotten nowhere.

He stretched out and thought about his battle with Succulent...not the most powerful of figures, but strong enough to be a member of Six Arms, and yet he'd fallen to Climb with minimal assistance. "I can't grow stronger, but I can grow more experienced." He remembered the advice he'd heard before. The more he knew, the more he could apply and the more options he had. Perhaps there was a hidden meaning there.

He thought about what he'd heard in the stories of Black Justice, their combat style focused on variation of options, a one handed sword method, a bow, and bare handed grips, throws, punches, grabs, in a sense, they made unpredictability and their variable options into a natural ability, each one giving an advantage to the other. Climb briefly imagined gouging at an opponent's eyes, and as they reared back, finishing them with a sword thrust, or running with a bow only to sling it and leap into a brawl...offense...offense...offense.

He splashed himself in the face and thought about it some more, and it stayed on his mind all the way until he went back to bed and drifted off to sleep, untroubled by further nightmares.

What DID trouble him the next day was the sudden dumping of cold water on his face.

"Good morning cherry." Zesshi said with her customarily indifferent but somehow also somewhat mocking expression on her face.

He snapped up flailing around, drawing...however against his will, a smile from her at his expense.

He put his hand over his chest and started breathing hard.

"Was that really necessary?" He asked, looking up and over at her.

She shrugged. "Maybe not, but...I was bored and...well you entertain me...at least a little...some of the time."

He sighed, "I guess I should thank you for allowing me to be useful?" He asked only half sarcastically.

"Yeah, you should be grateful, I mean you're still not worth it for me to mate with," he blushed furiously, "but at least you're more entertaining than dusty old trinkets."

"Plus, I brought you breakfast." She said and stepped aside, "Now aren't I a considerate jailer?" She asked with sweet, sweet sarcasm, dripping from her honeyed tongue.

"Ahhhh...yeah, fair trade." He said.

"First though..." She tossed him his practice sword.

"Chain your attacks." She commanded, and he did, over, under, slash, a firm kick to a place that would hurt men more than women, prompting her to laugh.

"You know I'm a girl, right?!" She laughed at him as she swatted the kick away.

He blushed, and attacked again.

"Good, good, always stay on the offensive, you're to weak to defend, so you have to attack, keep your enemy responding to you, if they're responding to you, they're not attacking your princess, and if you stop attacking, she stops living, go, go until you drop from exhaustion!" She shouted at him.

He continued, trying everything he knew, trying to get close, it was clear and obvious that she was just toying with him, limiting herself only to see what Climb could do, which as it turned out, was not much...but it was more than he had once upon a time. Eventually he tired, he stopped attacking, and then Zesshi attacked, she rushed in, palm to chest, and her foot behind his as she slid beside him, she pushed, he tripped and fell onto his back, and she put the tip of her scythe to his neck.

"Not bad cherry, for a weakling that is, but you are better than the average at least." She said.

"Thanks." He said and started panting and trying to get up.

They did two more sessions like that, and at Climb's request, she taught him a number of useful throws and grips. "You'll never be especially strong, but you can make your enemy's strength into yours." She told him...while bent over and looking him in the face as he lay on his back where she'd thrown him for the seventh time in eight minutes. He was sore, he was bruised, but he smiled and gave her a thumbs up.

"Now get yourself washed up and come and eat, I can't have our prisoner dying on us, and you're so weak its a wonder to me you do not die from falling out of bed." She said in a tone of voice that was only mockingly scathing. He sighed and obeyed, taking a warm bath again and cleaning up the sweat for the second time in a twelve hour period.

After he was bathed and dressed, he came out of the bathroom, then went and made tea, she sat in her usual place as he worked, and waited in silence until he poured a cup for each of them.

When he sat he gave a simple "Thank you." to her.

"You're welcome." She replied.

They ate in silence for a bit, it was a simple meal, biscuits, a bit of butter, a gravy dish, and a few eggs with cheese, but it was good nonetheless.

After awhile he decided to break the silence. "So..." he began a little awkwardly, "would you...maybe tell me a little about yourself?" He asked.

"What do you mean?" She asked. "You mean what do I do for the Slane Theocracy when I'm not guarding weak guard dogs? What do I do for fun...other than read really bad novels with absurd plot twists and bad predictable surprises? Or is it not completely obvious that I'm just a battle maniac wanting to have a baby with someone strong enough to be worth breeding with." She said asked somewhat bluntly.

"Are you maybe flirting with me a little?" She laughed and teased a blush from him, "I know, I know, I'm as beautiful as I am strong, blah blah blah, I've heard all the stupid lines before, and if you try using one of them I'll tear your tongue out and put it with the others." She said as she stirred her tea.

"Ahhh...no, that is definitely not what I was getting at." He said as he struggled to tell whether or not she was kidding. Her face was cryptic, hard to read. "You were...kidding about the tongues...right?" He asked with an uncomfortable amount of uncertainty.

She snickered, "Of course, you think I want to keep a pile of rotted meat somewhere, what am I a demihuman keeping midnight snack's handy? What kind of crazy person would sever a tongue?" She asked with a quizzical look.

Then she added with a smirk, resting her head in her hand as she leaned to one side and stirred some sugar into her tea..."I take something more valuable to men than that."

He looked at her in horror, and then when she began to laugh again, he realized she was joking about that too, and he gave a small laugh of amusement himself.

"No, what I mean is...I was just wondering where you came from, you know, what's your past, your history, I just wanted to know a little about your life?" He said, changing the question in such a way that he hoped any other questionable jokes might be headed off before she could think of them.

She set her biscuit down and folded her hands in front of her and looked at him blankly. "Why?"

"I'm sorry, did I say something I shouldn't have?" He asked, somewhat taken aback by her hollow answer.

She moved her hair aside and revealed the half elven ears. "Do you think anyone living in the Slane Theocracy with these...has a happy story to tell?" She asked.

"Oh...ahh...I'm sorry. I didn't mean to...ah...it was stupid of me and I should have known better, please forgive the question and forget I asked." He said, his voice deeply ashamed and clearly sincere as he bowed his head.

She looked at him in silence for a moment, as if weighing what he'd said.

"You mean that, don't you?" She asked with some curiosity.

"Of course I mean that." He said, his head snapping up and looking at her with surprise. "I wouldn't have said it if I hadn't."

"You're not just saying it because you think I'll crush you?" She asked him.

"Oh I don't think you'll crush me, I know you will, regardless of anything else, that is our routine isn't it? I try to fight, you kick me into mush, I get healed, we do it again the next day. You pretend to be entertained by my constant failure, and I constantly try and fail to get stronger." He said simply.

"I know we've done that for a few days now, but I mean, you're not just apologizing because you think I'm going to hurt you for offending me?" She asked. Curiosity tinged her voice.

"Oh. No. I'm apologizing because I asked about something painful and unpleasant, which I should not have asked, you've been as good to me as anyone could ever ask of their...host...under the circumstances, and I said something insensitive...which I obviously should have known was a bad thing to ask in the first place." Climb said, rushing his words out as fast as he could, and bowing his head apologetically.

"Hmmm, I think you're speaking the truth to me." She said.

"Do most people lie to you?" Climb asked.

"Lots of times, and most of which I don't care about, but nobody ever 'really' says they're sorry to me, they do say it, but they say it without meaning it, best case they're just being polite, most of the time they're just saying it because they think they'll get hurt if they don't." She said.

"Does that include the man I met a few days ago, Cardinal Raymond?" Climb asked, "I admit I don't always make the best judge for these things, but he seemed to be very straightforward, and if he really was what he said he was, I find it difficult to imagine he'd lie to you out of some sense of fear of reprisal."

"No, Cardinal Raymond and I go way back, even to before he became a Cardinal, he knows I'm a battle maniac, but he also knows I'm not insane either, nor do I particularly enjoy picking on the weak, I don't see the point, OK so someone is weak, you beat them up...now what? It isn't like its an accomplishment, I mean what is more impressive, the person who kills a wounded squirrel, or the one who brings down a full grown dragon in straight up combat?" She asked.

"The one who took down the dragon obviously." Climb said.

"So why does someone kill the wounded squirrel?" She asked, "If taking down the dragon is the impressive feat?

"Well, either they just enjoy cruelty...or they're to weak to take down the dragon." Climb replied.

"Right, so they feel strong, by reminding themselves that others are weaker, but that is a very relative kind of strength, you're strong relative to a weak guard, but you're weak next to me, its nothing to boast about to target ones that can't fight back, so I'm not going to just pummel some idiot just because they behave like an idiot in some small way. If I pummeled everyone for being stupid, well I'd never stop punching." She sighed, "There are so many idiots in this world."

"Oh, well...I don't really know what to say to that...I mean you're right...but..." He answered uncomfortably before trailing off into silence, and covered that discomfort by pouring tea for them both.

The sound of the tea pouring into the cup was the only sound in the room for several seconds, and when the glass pot clinked back onto the glass plate, Zesshi spoke.

"Fine." She sighed. "

"What?" He asked.

She sighed again...he made her do that a lot. "You wanted to know about my past?" She reminded him.

"Oh, well not if you don't want to say anything." He answered.

"What do you know of the elf king?" She asked.

"He rapes what he wants, and he wants a lot." Climb said distastefully.

"He wanted my mother." Zesshi said bluntly.

"Oh." He replied.

"Now here I am." She said flatly. "Its why my country went to war with him, to avenge her and give me a chance to kill him for what he did." She added.

"Wait...can I ask a stupid question?" He asked.

She looked at him dubiously. "Dumber than the one you already asked me, I've got to be honest with you Climb, I don't know what you could possibly...ever ask, that was worse than what you already did." She said, holding his gaze as she spoke.

"Perhaps I shouldn't ask then...after that gaffe, I don't want to top myself." He said. "Its just that...well maybe I'm wrong, but the implications of what you're saying seem particularly awful. Even for this kind of world."

Zesshi sighed and shook her head. "Alright, out of the most morbid form of curiosity, I'll let you ask this incredibly dumb question you've got burrowing around in your skull and find out what you think is making things so very much worse."

"This isn't easy to get at, its just something I started mulling over, its...going to take a few questions, if you don't mind." He said.

"Go ahead, but I'd better not be bored by it." She said.

"What doesn't bore you?" He asked.

"Not much, so you'd better at least make me laugh." She said with some annoyance.

"OK...so you work for the Slane Theocracy, they're basically your people...right, they raised you, your mother is with them, and so on...right?" He asked the obvious question.

She looked at him like he was an idiot, and did not answer, she only waved her hand for him to continue and get to the bloody damn point already, boredom began to set in.

"Well its just...the Slane Theocracy was at war with the Elf King...right?" He asked.

"Wow, that was a a stupid stupid question, you weren't kidding." She said bluntly and with more annoyance.

He blushed, and she sighed, "OK fine, yes, proceed, what are you getting at?"

"OK so the Slane Theocracy was at war with the Elf King because of what he did to your mother...but he also does this to his own people, right, like...a lot from what I learned while listening to the princess talk about him." Climb said, his voice indicating that he was leading to a point.

"Yes." Zesshi said, her eyes growing narrow with impatience.

"That means he has lots of other children too, doesn't it?" He asked curiously.

"I expect so." She said. "I've heard he's had thousands of them over the centuries."

"OK...and...forgive me for asking, but I've heard that the Slane Theocracy keeps many elf slaves, right, the ones captured in battle? They don't just go free, do they?" He asked.

"No." She said, "From what I understand, the elves they capture are sold into all kinds of work as slaves."

"And he doesn't give a damn about any of his children does he, does he keep them safe in the capitol?" Climb asked.

"No, he sends them out to fight, hoping they'll grow...stronger..." Zesshi said and began to trail off.

"So...doesn't that mean that the Slane Theocracy is having all your big...and little...brothers and sisters, tortured, abused, raped in brothels, mutilated, and sold off like animals...all over the country?" Climb asked. "It just...its hard to imagine that you're OK with this being done to your fammily, just because you and they share a father, how does it do anything to avenge what was done to your mother..." Climb trailed off.

Zesshi was obviously not listening anymore. She had been, as he spoke, reaching for the tea cup, but as he brought his line of inquiry to its conclusion, she froze, she stared straight ahead, her eyes, usually passive, bored, disinterested, or at most...with him at least, mildly amused.

This was new, her eyes,were usually narrow, but now they were wide with horror. She couldn't hear anything, there was a ringing in her ears a thousand times worse than when they'd been clogged by mud, water, or muck, it was loud as a scream an inch away, and every other sound in the world tuned out into nothingness as she realized what Climb had been saying, even before he'd finished speaking, she hadn't heard the last few words or so, she couldn't, because...

For the first time in her life, Zesshi Zetsumi felt sick.

**AN: IMPORTANT 'GOD RISING' Announcement**

**God Rising Chapter 65 is up on the discord...and ALL God Rising chapters for the next few weeks, will ONLY be available on my discord server: /ArqYV5Q**

**FFN will only be recieving side stories for the time being, as the discord community grows. That is where all the latest news and beta reading is done, and all chapters are released there first. While beta reading does slow the release down somewhat, it has lead to considerable improvements and fixes before release, I wouldn't be NEARLY as happy with Chapter 65, as I am now with the readers giving an advance look. So...if you want the story quick, then that is where you need to be. If you're waiting on the FFN upload, expect to wait awhile.**


	3. The Price of Failure

**AN: If you're going to bitch in the review about me writing a chapter for a side story…don't. Unless you're willing to pay for me to focus on a specific story, you'll have to wait on my schedule and my inspiration. And of course…discord members get early access.**

**Just remember:**

**Tom goes to a bar that is serving free beer and appreciates it.**

**Philip is a choosing beggar. He goes to a bar that is serving free beer and complains that it isn't the beer he wanted, and he isn't willing to pay for what he wants.**

**Be like Tom, everybody likes Tom because he appreciates what is freely given to him. Philip is an entitled choosing beggar. Everybody hates Philip. Don't be like Philip.**

_…Kami Miyako…Climb's 'Quarters'…_

Zesshi sat there, staring at Climb while not really seeing him. Climb didn't move. He was actually afraid of what would happen if he did. He hadn't known her long, but this didn't seem like her.

Finally, she stood and walked purposefully to his bathroom where the chamber pot sat, he could hear her picking it up from the ground, and then the sound of vomiting reached his ears. It was quite a while, then he heard it being set back down on the floor and she returned with even steps to where she had been seated and sat back down again.

He looked at her face, and the blank expression that had become horrified, now became a mask of rage. Her fists clenched so tightly that her entire body was shaking.

Finally, after several minutes, she seemed to get hold of herself.

The mask of indifference and boredom returned, and Zesshi looked at Climb and smiled very sweetly, it was completely out of place on her face. "Thank you Climb, for bringing this terrible oversight to my attention…" she inclined her head to him, reached out and took her teacup, and drank the entire cup in one swift motion before replacing it on its little plate, "I just realized I have somewhere I have to be…right this second…and it is going to take me all day and probably all night, but I will come see you again tomorrow. You have my…gratitude." She said, and then stood and quietly walked out, leaving him alone.

It was perhaps the single strangest interaction he'd ever had in his entire life…and given that he was friends with a giant hammer wielding woman who was always trying to drag him off to bed, well that was saying something.

He spent the rest of the day more or less alone in practice, doing his futile best to smash down the barrier between himself and progress towards his goal.

Of course the day wasn't left totally without human interaction, eventually someone knocked at the door, "I'm here." Climb said from the bathroom and jokingly added, "As if I could be anywhere else?"

The door opened and a young elf girl entered holding a tray. She was wearing what amounted to a long potato sack with holes for head and arms, and no shoes.

"Your meal, prisoner 24601." She said softly as she entered, turned, closed and locked the door behind her…and then as he came around the corner, she saw that he was fully armored and holding a sword. She dropped the tray in shock and tried to turn and go for the door, she started to let out a scream as she fumbled for the key.

Climb's eyes widened in surprise at her reaction, and he dropped his weapon and rushed over and put his hand on the door. "It's OK!" He said, "I'm not trying to escape! I'm not going to hurt you! Please calm down!" His voice was alarmed, if someone heard her, if someone thought he was trying to escape with Zesshi Zetsumi gone…it could go very badly not only for him, but for Princess Renner as well, and he couldn't let that happen.

She tried tugging against the door, but it stood firm as the stone wall it was attached to. Finally, she regained her senses as he did not move to escape or to attack, and she stepped away, keeping a few comfortable feet of distance between herself and this…unusual prisoner.

"I'm sorry." She said softly with her head lowered, and then she realized what she'd done with the tray and began cursing as she scurried to clean it up.

She knelt on the floor and began by turning the tray upright and then putting the bowl and other dishes on it. Climb knelt next to her and began to assist in the effort. As he did so, she jerked back involuntarily.

"It's OK." Climb said, looking over at her as he picked up one of a number of biscuits. "I'm just helping you out."

She looked at him suspiciously but remained silent as they cleaned up the mess, and then set the tray on the table.

"Well I suppose some stayed in the bowl." Climb said with a shrug.

The girl went red faced, and Climb got a better look at her, the potato sack that passed for clothing…had probably been a cheaper sack to begin with. Her eyes were green and narrow, her ears had been…cut, so that their elven length had been denied her, as if to cut away her heritage. Her body was waifish and small. To say she was being well fed would have been a bald-faced lie.

He got up and sat at the table. "Thank you for the food." He said politely and she looked at him like his head was on backwards.

"Ahhh…would you like some of it?" He asked.

A brief flash of hate passed over her face before her neutral expression returned. "Oh, that is what you want sir." She said, and she lowered herself to her hands and knees.

He was mystified by what she was doing, too much so for a moment to even question it, and then he saw her start to lick the spilled porridge from the stone floor.

Climb was equal parts embarrassed and alarmed, "No!" He said suddenly, "Please, get up, that isn't what I meant!" She looked up at him in surprise.

She stopped licking up the spilled food but looked up at him uncertainly, not shifting from her posture. Climb got up, she flinched again as he came near, but he slowed his motions to make her more at ease, touched her shoulders, and gently drew her up to her feet.

"I meant, sit at the table with me, and perhaps have a biscuit or two. You haven't been eating well, that is obvious." He said kindly.

She didn't speak as she looked at him, she did, however, finally meet his eyes, and held them as if she was searching for some sign of cruelty or mockery. To show that he wasn't, he gently guided her with one hand over to a chair opposite his own, and slowly with the most gentle press of his fingers on her bare shoulder, guided her to be seated.

When she sat, he reclaimed his own seat, and he handed her one of the biscuits. She held it uncertainly, like she wasn't sure what to do with it, but her eyes stared at it with ravenous hunger.

Climb took a bite out of his own and gestured with his free hand for her to proceed. She looked hesitant for a moment more and then shoved the entire biscuit into her mouth and began chewing it as fast as she could, as if she feared it would be taken from her.

He looked across the table at her and, afraid she might choke on it, he poured a cup of water from a pitcher and slid the cup across the table to her. "Don't choke." Climb said with some concern in his voice.

She managed something like a smile through her stuffed out chipmunk cheeks and gradually began to swallow, darting her hands out to grab the cup and seizing it in a dual handed grip before she drank it down as well, ensuring that she heeded his advice and did not choke to death at the table.

She still didn't speak, she just eyed another biscuit hungrily and sat with her hands in her lap. Climb looked at her cockeyed and gestured to the plate. "Take another. Just…chew slower this time OK?" He suggested.

She snatched another, but this time she only bit off half of it and chewed in silence. When she was finished she took up the cup in one hand and drank the remainder of the cup with a satisfied sigh.

She looked at another biscuit, the plate had held five of them, Climb had finished one and was on his second, while she had wolfed down two. She obviously badly wanted the third, and so Climb just slid the plate over to her.

She took it slowly and ate with smaller bites, and when she was done, he sat with his hands intertwined on the table across from her, he finally spoke. "What is your name?" He asked.

"Meat." She said.

"I'm sorry, but I don't have any meat up here, they gave me no way to store food…"

She sighed. "No, my name, what they call me, is 'Meat'."

"Oh." He said and thought for a moment. "So…what 'was' your name?" He asked. "I'm guessing it wasn't 'meat' before you ended up here." He said softly.

"I 'was' Aorli." She said softly.

Climb was about to ask how she'd come to be here, but he blushed and looked away as he remembered Zesshi's reaction, it couldn't be a good story.

"You want to know how I got here." She said, her voice was neither cruel nor kind, simply bare of emotion beyond a hint of sadness.

"I won't ask it." He said. "Forgive my shallow curiosity, I know it can't be easy to say." He added.

"You're a nice one." She said with a smile that, when she was free, must have been truly radiant.

"I wasn't much different than you once. I haven't forgotten what it meant to feel like nothing." He said.

She met his eyes at the sadness in his voice and said, "I'll tell you what, you tell me yours, I'll tell you mine." She said.

"Fine. Fair enough." He said.

"I don't know who my parents are." Climb began, "I never knew their names and I don't remember their faces, I vaguely remember wandering the streets of the kingdom when I was very small, and eating garbage to stay alive. I remember the dogs I used to sleep within the alleys, they took care of me, people didn't. I guess I would say everything was just…very unfortunate. I barely felt sadness, it's just that things 'were' and it was unfortunate that it was so. Of course a child can't go on like that forever, and a particularly cold rain seemed like it was finally going to end my unfortunate life, so I laid myself down in an alley…I think I was five or six at the time, and just waited for the unfortunate end."

Climb poured himself another cup of water and drank half of it, "Then a carriage was riding past me and stopped, and an angel of gold stepped out from it, she had me brought inside, and took me to her home, and she personally nursed me back to health. I became her companion first, and then her bodyguard in the palace. I had been saved that day by the princess. She had me cared for, taught, trained, and I have dedicated myself to her ever since. She is why I'm here now." He said quietly. "As long as I am a good hostage, she will be safe."

Aorli sat for a moment as she took all that in, then she said with a shake of her head, "No she won't."

Before he could ask her what she meant, she began to tell her story. "I was born in the capitol, but my mother had to leave it shortly after I came along. I don't know who my father is exactly, she has always refused to say, she only took me as far away from the capitol as we could go. That always made me think my father was the king himself, but I have no way to know. She moved us to a town not too far from the Theocracy border, and things were fine there, I grew up for many years in relative contentment. But when war broke out with the Theocracy, all that changed, they besieged our town for two weeks before offering terms of peace."

Her face turned stark and bitter, "They did not keep those terms, we were supposed to be safe from harm, they promised to spare us...they spared us from death, but not from worse than death. A man named Justicar got his way, he cut off part of my ears and had all of the females put to use while our men could only weep and cry and rage in their chains. He had us sold all over the Theocracy. I never did see my mother again, I don't know if she's alive or dead, I hope she's dead, she'd be better off. I ended up getting sold a few times until I found myself working the prisons. I slop food to the inmates, my master says it does the prisoners good to know that they're better than someone, that it keeps the tensions down…but I think he just likes the company at night." Her voice was equal parts bitter and matter of fact as she finished her story.

After a brief pause she said, "That is why I say 'no she's not'", her head shook grimly, "Their promises are only as good as what is profitable or what is convenient, if they think the one you're here for is a liability, they'll have her killed, and you too most likely."

Climb felt himself shaking at the notion. Princess Renner had told him on one of her secret visits not to worry, that both she and he were perfectly safe.

He calmed himself down. "That may be true, but I have absolute confidence in her safety nonetheless." He said cryptically. "But…why are you here? The one who usually comes to me is Zesshi?" He asked.

"I don't know, I was only told to come deliver some food to a special prisoner kept in isolation." She said with a casual shrug.

"I see, Zesshi would permit me to leave to run the grounds and get some exercise, I don't suppose you've received any word on that, did you?" He asked.

"None." She said, "I only brought what I was told. You're much…nicer than I expected, you haven't even hit me yet…or anything else, you even let me have some of your food after I stupidly dropped most of it. Why are you being so nice? I'm not going to help you escape, if that's what you're hoping for." Aorli said to him with uncertainty in her voice.

"I'm not looking to escape." He replied, "And it is how my princess would want me to behave, she's the Golden Princess, the shining jewel of the kingdom, she is the kindest of souls, and I would sully her name if I behaved badly towards anyone." He said firmly. "I want to be an agent of justice, her justice, so I can't be anything less than virtuous."

"You're the first nice human I've ever met." She said in a disbelieving voice.

"It's who I want to be." Climb said in response, "Everyone can be who they want to be, if they're willing to act the way such a person would act, I want to be good, so I behave as someone good. I want to be responsible, so I act responsibly. I am the sum of my actions and my choices, and so is everyone else, some are…complicated, but I'm not. I guess that makes me a little predictable, but I can live with that." Climb replied.

"Could I ask you a favor?" Climb asked.

"What would you like?" She asked curiously.

"Could you ask permission for me to be escorted on to the grounds, I would like to go for a run today." He said.

"The jailor would never…" She began, and he raised a finger to stop her.

"Seek permission from Cardinal Raymond." He said. "He knows about what I'm permitted to do, and though he probably won't allow me to be alone, I think he will provide an escort at least. Tell him…" Climb paused and thought for a moment, "…Tell him that dogs need their exercise." He chuckled a little bit, and Aorli stood up.

"I'll do it." She said a little bit fearfully. "I've never so much as seen a cardinal…but…"

"Don't worry, I spoke with Cardinal Raymond, he is…strange, but he does not seem to me to be a bad man, at least as people here go." Climb said.

She left and locked the door behind her, leaving him alone, he had plenty of time then to bathe himself, and sit down and read for quite some time. Several hours later, there was a knock at the door and a very large guard appeared. Behind him, Climb could see the waifish form of the underfed Aorli.

"I've been instructed to see you to the grounds below to run laps until you collapse." The barrel-chested monster looking fellow in front of him said.

"Thank you." Climb replied, and he snatched up his water skin and followed them both down the stairs, the fellow didn't say anything else, everything about him said that he had very little to say to anyone.

Moments later Climb was running the courtyard as he had before, while his temporary guard and the slave Aorli stood by waiting for him to finish, he'd run a dozen or so laps and he'd finally tired himself out to the point of collapse, and proved it by falling down on the grass. He rolled onto his back and reached for his waterskin, only to find it beyond where his hand could grasp.

Aorli, whether by training as a slave or kind impulse in gratitude for the decency he had earlier shown to her, grabbed it for him and crouched over where he lay and helped his head up with one hand while tilting the water vessel towards his lips so he could drink. It was only then that he noticed that her face was badly bruised, her right eye was almost completely shut from the swelling and there was a large dark mark where something, presumably a fist, had struck her.

He had the sense to finish drinking the water she'd offered before he got up, but when he did he looked at the guard that had been set to monitor him. "Thank you for your patience," he said, "But there is one problem."

The guard looked at him like he'd shat on his boots and then rolled his eyes. "What? I have better things to do."

"Did you do that to her?" Climb asked and pointed to Aorli's eye.

"What if I did?" The guard asked smugly. "She deserved it."

"You shouldn't hit her like that, she wasn't trying to make your life hard, she just did something I asked her to do, she didn't hurt you, or steal from you, or attack you, so what'd you hit her for?" Climb asked as his anger built.

"Does anyone need a reason to hit an elf bitch?" He snorted, "She's just Meat, what do you care?" He asked and spat on her face just for emphasis.

Aorli didn't even move to wipe it off.

And that was when Climb punched the guard full in the face, his helmet was an open-faced design with a simple nose guard, which meant a punch to the cheek or the jaw would still hurt like hell.

When the guard fell, he started kicking. Climb might have been 'capped at gold' as the adventurer's said, but he would have been counted as being among the strongest of the gold ranked adventurers, and he kicked like it. The guard he'd hit might have been large, but he was taken off guard and did not have the experience or training Climb did.

Climb kicked him in the face till he stopped moving, and then he turned to a stunned Aorli, and he wiped the spit from her cheek with one finger. What he did not notice was that this action drew the attention of several guards who had been coming around a nearby corner and up the street into the courtyard, and they responded to an attack on one of their own.

The brawl was short and brutal, Climb was no match for a half a dozen such men, and before he knew what had hit him, he lay coughing on the ground as he was kicked and stomped. They might have killed him, had Aorli not shouted…he didn't quite hear what, something about the Cardinal, and then the butt of a spear connected to his forehead again and he was unconscious.

He woke up much later in his bed, stripped of basically everything, with a towel over his forehead and Aorli wiping some blood away from his face and rinsing the cloth off in a bowl.

When he looked at her, he saw she was sporting a second black eye and that the first one had been 'punched shut' completely.

**AN: Well I hope you like this chapter. Assuming you do, of course reviews are welcome, as are charitable donations to bdgiving dot org. **


	4. The Wounded & the Weapon

**AN: If you intend to leave a review complaining about OCs without offering a specific criticism that might help expand them or improve the writing…then don't bother. If you're going to spam reviews demanding the story you want while saying nothing of value of the one you're 'reviewing'…I'll write a one hundred chapter Demiurge x Vanysa romance story before I go back to God Rising. (Or maybe not, but I really don't like entitled brats sooo...maybe)**

**And…**

**If you want early access to all published stories without the choosing beggars, you can find them on the 'Overlord Fanfiction' Discord Server.**

_…Kami Miyako…Climb's 'Quarters'…_

"Ouch." Was all Climb managed to get out for several minutes as Aorli, or 'Meat' cleaned him up. "What happened?" He asked.

"What do you remember?" Aorli asked him as she rung the cloth out and wet it again.

"I remember a group of guards approaching, I fought them, I put down a few…I think, before I was overwhelmed, then…lots of hitting, then blackness." He said.

"OK." She said, and she began to wipe the blood from his chest. "After they knocked you out, they hit you for at least a minute, they were going to kill you, then I told them that you were a special prisoner of the cardinals, and they might not have believed me, but an…older woman, someone called her Berenice, showed up and confirmed it, she had me bring you up here and told me to take care of your injuries." She said, sounding somewhat relieved as she relayed the story.

"And those?" Climb asked as he slowly raised a very sore arm and pointed with his fore and middle fingers at her two eyes.

"The guard you knocked out…he woke up, told them why you'd hit him, so they decided you needed to be punished by more than just beating you. They figured that the best way to do that was to render your actions worse than pointless…they held me up and made me open my eyes, then this eye was hit with the butt of the same spear they used on you," she pointed to the eye that had been completely shut, "then they punched me once in this eye." She pointed to the other eye, "they said it was the price of failure, and told me to tell you 'if' you woke up, that hadn't you been foolish, I'd have only been hit once today instead of three times." She said, keeping her voice carefully neutral, while obviously shaking and in considerable pain.

"Did the one called Berenice see?" He asked curiously as he remembered the name as belonging to one of the Cardinals.

"No, she wasn't there when I was hit." She said with a slow shake of her head.

Climb lay looking up at the ceiling for a moment. "I'm sorry." He said softly.

She shook her head again. "No, you were trying to help. Just know now that you can't. Nobody here can, and nobody here will, and don't do that again." She said with a little catch in her voice.

"Don't do what again?" Zesshi said as she walked into the room.

"Nothing of importance mistress." Aorli said deferentially, falling to her knees when Zesshi approached.

Zesshi reached down and put her thumb and forefinger under Aorli's chin and tilted her gaze upwards.

"Who are you?" Zesshi asked, "And why are you here?"

"This slave is named 'Meat' mistress, and she was sent to provide the prisoner with food, and then…to take care of him while he recovers." Aorli said meekly.

Zesshi turned Aorli's face so that it was canted first to the left, then to the right, as she noticed the bruising on the elf slave. "Did he do that to you?" She asked curiously, without saying what it was she meant, Aorli did not have to guess.

"No mistress, a guard hit me…and when the prisoner found out he hit the guard and knocked him out in reprisal…then some others showed up and did that to him, then they hit me twice more to punish him for it." Aorli said, she kept her voice even, but it was impossible to fully disguise the pain she was in.

"To punish 'him'?" Zesshi asked, prompting Climb to interject.

"Yes, since hitting her bothered me, they beat me up, then hit her twice so that I'd know that 'I' was to blame for her getting even more injured than she already was." He said dejectedly.

As he explained, Zesshi nodded, "That makes sense, you were weak, they punished the one you wanted to protect in order to further punish you." She said looking over the battered and bruised up Climb with a neutral expression.

"Well Meat…they worked you over pretty hard, sure it was only twice they hit you?" Zesshi said, and she reached down and touched the girl on her side, just under her arm, prompting her to wince.

"Yeah I thought so." Zesshi said knowingly, "You were lying to Climb to keep cherry boy from feeling worse, weren't you?" She asked, to which Aorli responded with small and nervous nodding, and Climb tried to sit up in alarm.

"Well not to worry, you got lucky, I grabbed a few healing potions in a bag rather than just one." She said, and she put her pack down on the table and began rustling through it.

"Her name isn't 'Meat'" Climb said.

"What?" Zesshi asked.

"I said…her name is not 'Meat'. Her name is Aorli." He replied firmly.

Zesshi looked down at the wide-eyed elf girl on her knees and at the bed ridden Climb.

Aorli turned her head away from Zesshi to look at him, 'No' she mouthed silently.

Zesshi looked at Climb's struggle with some amusement. "I'm afraid I can't hear people who are defeated and on their backs because of a few bruises, It seems that you'll have to stand up so I can make out what you're trying to say." She said.

'No.' Aorli mouthed again while Zesshi ignored them both and went back to rummaging.

Climb groaned and managed to swing his legs over the bed, one of them was obviously broken, and the other didn't have a place that wasn't bruised. He let his feet fall to the floor and sucked in his teeth as the pain struck. The fact that he had nothing on at the time and so his body revealed numerous injuries, seemed not to bother Zesshi in the least, nor did he seem to be embarrassed to be wearing nothing but bruises and blood.

Aorli looked up at Zesshi as the woman ignored all this and pulled out a small sack. "Please, mistress he shouldn't stand, as this slave said, her name is 'Meat', just call her 'Meat', just don't make him…" And then Climb forced himself up to a standing position with a cry of agony, before almost immediately toppling over on his side and then fell over the rest of the way onto his back in a heap as his legs gave out.

It was at that moment that Zesshi pulled out two healing potions and set them on the table.

"Well that 'was' standing up, not quite for as long as I would have preferred, but…good enough, I heard you." Zesshi said and approached the pair, she handed two healing potions to Aorli and then returned to sit at the table.

"Use one of those on him, Aorli." Zesshi said, using the elf girl's name, and prompting Climb to grin from the floor. "He did win one fight for you today at least." Zesshi said with a wry bemused grin.

Aorli gave her a flash of gratitude as she tilted Climb's head up and helped him to drink. A moment later he was restored, and Aorli consumed the other to restore her eyes.

"So, you've been busy Climb." She said when the blonde young man stood on his feet again.

"Seeing the ugly side of this beautiful city, all from right here." He said regretfully.

"Can I ask you something?" He asked Zesshi as he gestured for Aorli to sit at the table.

"Is it a stupid question?" Zesshi asked him.

"Maybe?" He answered uncertainly.

"Ask it." She said.

"How do the cardinals treat the slaves here? I met Raymond, its…I just can't see him throwing someone like her," he gestured to Aorli, "screaming into some brothel. Or backing that guy…what did you call him Aorli?" Climb asked.

"Justicar." She said in a voice of ice. "He wasn't the only one," she said, "He was the pioneer though, we were all trained for different things and marked accordingly. His system had me trained for…household tasks." She lifted the sack that served as her clothing and exposed the brand on her left thigh, so if you're going to ask that question, you should probably ask about all the different forms of…use we're put to. There are many 'Justicars'" She let the sack fall back down again, and it looked as if she were about to start crying, when Zesshi spoke up.

"Well if it makes you feel better Aorli," Zesshi said, "Justicar, the one you call 'the great breaker' is dead."

Aorli's eyes glazed over. "How?" She asked in surprise, he had seemed almost divinely powerful when she'd looked up at him before.

"His eyes were gouged out of his head, which was then severed from his body and nailed to a village gate with a note of warning. I don't know what it said, but the killing was done by an organization called 'Black Justice' run by Neia Baraja."

"When…" She gasped in disbelief.

"Oh this happened awhile ago, several months in fact." Zesshi said casually.

"How wonderful…" Aorli said wistfully.

"Now as to your question Climb…I don't really know. I'm in an isolated sort of position. But…I will ask." Her eyes narrowed and a dangerous energy permeated the air around her. "I have some…questions…for them." She said and lowered her head, her face bore the fury of a jungle cat, and it moved her hair a little as she did so, exposing her half elven ears.

Aorli involuntarily gasped and covered her mouth, her eyes widened as she saw the impossibly distinctive feature.

"You're…like me." She said in surprise.

Zesshi shook her head. "No, I'm not." She said.

"But your ears…" She said.

"Yes, I'm a half elf, but not by choice!" She snapped and gave a glare at Aorli.

"The king of your country raped my mother to produce me, I abjure my father and everything he was! I'll kill him when I get the chance." Zesshi added with bloodlust in her voice.

"Do that, and we will hail you as a hero for all the generations to come." Aorli said in a reverential whisper. "I believe him to be my father also, yet he threw me into a fight I wasn't ready for, now I'm a slave and a plaything to a jailer, I'm more imprisoned than any of the humans with bars on their doors." She said bitterly. "That half of yourself that you hate might be a monster, but what makes the half you embrace, any different?" She asked.

Zesshi did not show that she was in any way affected by the half-starved slave, but only said softly…

"I see…so you might be my half-sister." She looked at Aorli contemplatively, "How…interesting." She said softly.

"Climb, you might have lost down there…but…I'm impressed by your victory." She said. "I had wanted to beat the ever loving piss out of you again today…but I am afraid I could only stop in for a short period, I have some…urgent business to tend to again today."

Zesshi stood up and nodded politely to Aorli, "And you…try not to get him into any more trouble, he's reckless you know, weakness and recklessness are not a combination that tends to lead to long lives. Have a nice night." She said before smiling slightly and walking out.

When Zesshi was gone, Climb & Aorli looked at each other in confusion.

"Do you know what she was talking about?" Climb asked.

"I don't. That was…strange." Aorli replied.

"Very strange." Climb agreed.

Zesshi, when she left, went straight for Berenice's office.

There was a guard at her door, that was more or less the norm even here, or one might say 'especially' here in the seat of government. Zesshi however, did not need to worry about guards, she was of the Black Scripture, she was humanity's trump card, she was not going to be questioned.

Still, this time, as she approached the door, the guard stationed there told her, "Cardinal Berenice is meeting with Cardinal Dominic at the moment, could you wait for a few minutes?" He asked politely.

"No." She said and opened the door to walk in on the two.

She strolled in and closed the door behind her.

"I have a question." She said, interrupting the pair.

"Not now Dominic said in annoyance. "We're busy. We've got to settle on what to do to bring Re-Estize over to our side, I don't know what it is you want to know, but it will have to wait."

"Well it won't, so you'll have to." She said.

He was about to sputter out his anger but she cut him off, "Shut it." She said bluntly in a voice of ice. Zesshi was naturally direct, Zesshi was often indifferent, but she had never spoken to any of the cardinals…not even Cardinal Dominic, whom she disliked very much, like that. It was enough to close his mouth in surprise.

"I want to know something and you are going to give me the answer." She said.

Berenice smiled in her matronly way and said, "If it is so urgent that you must interrupt this, then…please ask."

"Do you know if there are any of the elf king's children among the captives that have been taken over the years? And if so, what are you doing with them?" She asked.

Of all the questions she could have asked, this was the last one Berenice expected. In all her time in the Slane Theocracy, she'd never shown any indication that she gave a damn what happened to other elves, all she wanted was to fight, kill her father, and find someone who could defeat her so she could have the victor's children.

"I…ah…" Berenice's matronly face became uncomfortable.

Dominic however, only laughed. "That monster fucks everything that moves on two legs and is female…and he's been doing so for centuries, what do you think? Honestly Zesshi, stick to being a battle maniac, leave the thinking to us." He said arrogantly.

Zesshi kept her face carefully neutral and focused her eyes on Cardinal Berenice. "Are there any measures that prohibit the behavior that created me?"

"Measures?" Berenice asked.

"Laws, rules?" She asked.

Dominic snorted out a laugh, "We want more like you, why the hell would we create rules against it?"

Berenice shot him a disgusted look and then turned to Zesshi.

"No, none." She said honestly.

Zesshi looked at her curiously, "You're OK with that?" She asked.

"I don't need to be, I just have to live with it, it's the reality of war and we're fighting for the future of humanity." She said.

Zesshi carefully kept her face neutral, "I suppose that makes sense. After all, they're weak, who cares what happens to them, and of course…what does it matter what people do to elf bitches? Especially if it makes more _weapons_ like me? It is a small price to pay after all, isn't it?" She asked rhetorically.

Berenice nodded with some discomfort, and Dominic snarled out, "Of course, now could you excuse us please, we have things to go over."

"So if we can ally with the Elf King and bring that idiot…what was his name…Philip, to power, that will give us a considerable military force and make the Sorcerer King fight on two fronts…just how much money do we need to send that idiot this time?" Zesshi overheard Dominic say as she casually walked out of the room and then out of the building. There was somewhere else she wanted to be.

She went to the treasury, this was the place she knew best, she worked alone there, nobody ever bothered her, she could linger in quiet, in the past, she'd all but hidden there while she fantasized about what kind of man might defeat her, she'd even reveled in delicious safe terror of telling herself wicked tales about some monstrous evil figure defeating her, and thinking of how strong their children might be.

Now she went there for a different reason. She wanted to be alone to voice her own thoughts, she had never been much for the gods, but in the tranquility and silence of the treasury, among those powerful relics, it was an almost religious experience, not least because it was the only place she'd ever been in all the world, that reminded her that there were other beings more powerful than she was, and that was what she needed to help her think right about now.

_…Kami Miyako…Climb's 'Quarters'…_

He'd lost track of the days, but Zesshi hadn't come back in at least two, not since meeting Aorli, but she had returned to tend to him in Zesshi's stead on the second day, and she seemed considerably happier. "I didn't expect to see a smile on your face today Aorli." Climb said as he got up from doing his morning pushups. "What would be the reason?" He asked.

"The jailor here is dead." She said grinning. "His wife killed him and then hanged herself." Aorli said with a grin.

Climb looked at her in surprise. "That is a sentence that in all my life I would never treat as 'good news'…but I do." He said.

"Oh and in case you'd like to know, I overheard a few others talking, and that squadron of guards who beat the piss out of you…you won't be seeing them anymore." She said with a smile.

"Why not?" He asked curiously.

"Because they've been transferred, all the way to Ikari City, the place that'll be on the front line in the war against the Sorcerous Kingdom." She said. "They'll be lucky to stay alive."

"Well no wonder you're in a good mood." Climb said with a grin, and Aorli set a tray on the table and sat across from him.

He scooped some of the food onto his plate and then slid the tray over to her. She could smile at him now without fear, nobody had ever shed blood for her before, or shed their own. She remembered looking over his naked body as he collapsed, he'd been a mass of pain that stood for a second, bruises, breaks, ugly purple marks…it had been an even more brutal beating than she'd realized. Even the one he called Zesshi, the half elf, had looked at him with some surprise.

They ate in amiable silence and Aorli told him about her brothers and sisters, while Climb told stories of the amazing golden princess he served, and when she left, Climb was in a profoundly good mood. He wondered if princess would be able to visit him today.

He was still wondering that when he looked out the window that evening and saw the bright orange glow of a very large fire.

**AN: Well this has been an interesting chapter to write, quite frankly some of it was unpleasant. I'm trying to write Zesshi Zetsumi as accurately as possible. MOST fanfics only have her written as some kind of a battle maniac, one dimensional, a mere weapon. But I want to write her properly, so a lot of work is going into this one. You'll understand more as the story unfolds. **


	5. The Lucky Ones

**AN: This has become a favorite story of mine to write, so expect more of it. **

**If however…you want a double release of it…you'll have to bribe me. Specifically: **

**A year ago a friend of mine named Lucy Morgan passed away, and last year we memorialized her life by paying for kids in a developing nation to get an education. This year, we're doing the same. We want to raise $300 to pay for the tuition, books, materials, and food, for a secondary class of children at the Kasese Humanist school in Uganda. Help me reach that goal by donating to bdgiving dot org and I will do a double chapter release.**

OK let's begin:

_...Kami Miyako...Climb's 'Quarters'..._

The orange glow drew Climb from his bed, and he went to the window to look outside, the air was cool and crisp, as one would expect for this time of year, its why he left the window open in the first place. He did not have to scan the horizon to find the source of the blaze, it was deep in the city. Cries and shouts began to reach his ears, and he tensed up, his hands rested on the stone windowsill, and his fingers curled under his hands and formed fists. His entire body shook, helping in times of disaster was his nature…yet here he stood, trapped in a tower able to only watch as people screamed. He strode away from the window and walked to the door, he pounded hard on it and called out, "Hey! Anybody! Guards! Someone! Let me out of here! There's a fire! We've got to do something! I promise I won't try to escape! Just let me out and let me help!" He pounded on the thick door as hard as his fist could do without breaking. He knew the sound of his ponding was echoing down the curved stairs, but no sound echoed back up to him but the sounds he made.

Nobody was coming.

He looked around his room for anything he might use, and then he rushed to his window again and leaned part of the way outside so that he could look all the way down to the ground. It was perhaps thirty feet down, if he jumped…he'd just end up with broken legs again.

He slapped his forehead with an open hand. "No…not that…anything but that." He said with a frustrated groan. "To think that would EVER be useful." He said softly, and then he went over to his bed and with some frustration due to its awkward shape and flexibility, he took his mattress off the bed and forced it out the window and watched it fall to the ground. He then pulled his bed over to the window so that the post ran perpendicular to the opening, and while giving some begrudging praise to every author who ever wrote a terrible escape sequence, he took off his armor and tied the end of the sheet to the post, then tied the blanket to the end of the sheet, then tied the towels to the end of the blanket, and then to each other, and he reenacted the worst and most cliched jail break scenes he'd ever read, and hopped from the bed frame to the window sill. He let out an annoyed sigh, and gradually walked himself down the wall of the tower until a minute later he had reached the end of his makeshift rope and dropped the remaining ten feet to the mattress below.

He tucked his feet together and fell to one side to minimize injury and sprung up hale and hearty. He rushed in the direction of the smoke and flames that lit up the night, and he soon found himself where the disaster lay. It was a two-story building of simple construction, wood, brick, and a straw thatched roof that would have laid over a wooden frame. People had already formed a bucket brigade and were throwing water onto the flames, the noise of collapse like that of battle and nearby people with injuries lay collapsed into heaps, coughing and clutching their wounds when conscious, laying utterly still when dead or unconscious. "Who is in charge here?!" He shouted the question, and a man in armor spoke up.

"Over here!" He shouted, and Climb rushed over. He didn't wait for the man in charge to introduce himself, the orange light of the flames spoke of the urgency of the matter and the cost of engaging in trivial formalities in the moment. Instead Climb shouted, "Listen to me! You've got to wet the surrounding buildings! If you don't then the fire will spread! You can't stop that building from burning down, its clearly done for! But if you don't wet the area around it, this fire could spread to half the city!" He shouted out his instruction.

The man looked taken aback by Climb's directions, "How do you…" he began to shout.

"I'm from Re-Estize, we see lots of fires! Just take my word for it and do this! You cannot save that building; you can only contain the blaze!" He shouted as part of the roof caved in with a thunderous crash.

The man looked at Climb's urgent expression, and then as if finding something in his face that made the young blonde knight someone worth listening to, he gave a serious nod. "Alright!" He snapped and began shouting directions to the bucket brigade, who though confused, appeared to trust the armored man enough to take his direction.

Climb then rushed over and grabbed a bucket, and poured its contents over his head, soaking him from head to toe, he quickly soaked a rag and held it to his face for good measure, and then he charged headlong into the blaze. The heat was tremendous, and he coughed through the smoke as he went from room to room, keeping as low as he could from the smoke. "Can anyone hear me! Is anyone alive?!" He shouted over the thunderous blazing inferno. He found bodies as he moved, and his critical, trained eye was unnecessary when determining that some of them at least, had died violent deaths, with severed heads and crushed throats. He made his way up the stairs, still calling for help, below he heard the fires intensify, he'd seen what looked like a bar as he came in, and he guessed that the bottles had ruptured and added to the flames.

Still he did what he went in to do, and went from room to room, but found only empty chains and the very violent remains of the obviously dead. He heard a collapse behind him and whirled around, the roof had caved in, leaving him trapped where he stood, he looked around frantically as the smoke began to overtake him. "There!" He thought to himself with relief as he found a window, he tried to open it, but it was…oddly enough, locked shut. He grabbed a burning chair and began to beat on it until both it and the chair began to break.

He started coughing worse, he couldn't breathe, in a frenzied fear of death he shouted for the help that he had tried to be, and he tore at the broken parts of the locked up wooden shutters and sucked in a gulp of air from the outside. It was not enough, he began to sink down to his knees, as his vision began to blur, he saw the shutters break open from the outside, and someone climbing in, but that was all he made out before unconsciousness seized him.

When he woke up, he was in his own bed with Aorli looking after him and Zesshi sitting at the table sipping tea. The sheets had been replaced, as had the blanket and mattress, and he shot upright and looked around, he clutched his chest and gasped for breath, his eyes looked around frantically.

"Was that…it wasn't a dream…was it?" He asked. Aorli shook her head and Zesshi put down her teacup and looked over at him.

"No, you really were that stupid, that weak, and…I will admit…that brave." She said the last part somewhat begrudgingly.

"So…the fire?" He asked.

"All too real." She said. "And apparently you did some real heroics out there. From what I heard you gave completely new instructions to the brigade commander and had them stop fighting the building fire and had them soaking the surrounding buildings, had you not done that, well…" She looked over to the window at the clear blue sky, "I might be seeing smoke out that window right now." She said softly.

"Anyway, it might still be burning, and it isn't, chiefly because of you." She said politely, "As it is, all that burned down was one brothel, and the only ones to die were a bunch of customers and the elf slaves that worked there." She said as she bent her elbows and raised her arms up at her side and put her hands out, she looked down and smiled, "Not a big loss for the city compared to what could have happened." Zesshi said.

Aorli looked over at the black and white haired Zesshi and her eyes welled up, "I…" She began to say, but Climb spoke up.

"No, that isn't right." He said.

Zesshi looked at him, "What do you mean?" She asked curiously.

"I went in that building, and I went through all of it, the people there were already dead, and there were no elves, unless you're going to tell me that the humans in charge over there would unchain them all and let them leave…and kill their own customers." Climb said with a sarcastic voice and a grimace on his face.

"Oh, so you didn't just go straight upstairs then, very bold to search the place to that degree in those conditions. But I guess that just means that the elves killed their customers and escaped, doesn't matter, they'll be hunted down soon enough, there will be guards out scouring the countryside for them. Whether they died in the fire or die in the hills, doesn't matter, dead is dead, and nobody cares what happens to broken tools, toys, or weapons when their usefulness is done." Zesshi said dismissively.

Climb and Aorli looked at her, and she poured out three cups of tea and gestured at them to join her at the table.

"You're not even bothered by the deaths of the humans in there, mistress?" Aorli asked.

"Not really." Zesshi said as she put sugar in her tea, poured in some milk, and began to stir. "Why would I be? Those are the kind of people who would do…whatever, to me if they got the chance, why should I care if they burned to death?"

As Climb added milk to his tea, he said, "I wish I knew which of the people there pulled me out, I'd like to thank them for it. I'm lucky to be alive after that."

Aorli smiled. "I'm glad you are."

Zesshi rolled her eyes. "I should say so, weak people shouldn't try to play hero, but…" She leaned forward and grinned slyly at Climb, with her hard scary eyes twinkling at him, "recklessness is your virtue. If you only had strength that was its equal, I promise you'd not be going back to your precious princess still being 'cherry boy'." She chuckled and leaned back in the chair and finished her cup of tea. "My that was good. I hope tea survives this war."

Climb blushed a beet red at her teasing and looked over at Aorli. "I can never tell if she's being serious or not, but worse than that…I get kidnapped, thrown into a sack, hauled halfway across the world, locked into a tower…and what do I get watched by? The only other woman in the world who will call me 'cherry boy'." Climb sighed with irritation and shook his head. "Why me?" He asked as he looked up at the ceiling as if entreating the gods themselves to render answer.

Aorli smiled and gave a small giggle at his exaggerated annoyance.

"You're looking better Aorli." Zesshi said, "Are you eating more?" She asked.

"I am, mistress, one of the other slaves told me that she heard from someone else that there was a complaint that we were being fed too little to work properly, and the complainant was important enough to get our food rations doubled." Aorli said, "Plus he feeds me too." She said and pointed at Climb.

Zesshi arched her brow at him questioningly. "I'm not going hungry," Climb said, "Its really no big deal, its just that I don't need it all, so why not let her have some of it. It is the least I can do…" He said trailing off somewhat as Zesshi nodded in silent approval.

"Well you're a lucky slave, aren't you?" Zesshi said to Aorli, who visibly flinched at the term.

"Please don't call her that." Climb said.

"Isn't she?" Zesshi asked.

"No." Climb asked.

"Yes." Aorli said softly and looked down. "Meat is a slave…a slave…a lucky…lucky slave."

Zesshi looked over at Climb. "She's a slave till she gets free, not just because you don't treat her like one, you'd best remember that, this is Kami Miyako, not some fairytale world where you can just call her free and she is, and if she forgets that, she WILL die. You already got her beaten up, don't get her killed too." Zesshi said with a sharp rebuke, silencing Climb.

Aorli managed to raise her head enough to ask…" A lucky slave?" She sighed, "Is there such a thing?" She asked bitterly. "I could be worse off, the breaker training house in the city is supposed to be a nightmare." She said and began to tremble, "The stories out of there…from the ones who make it out…"

"The what now?" Zesshi asked.

"Forgive this slave," Aorli began, "but Meat thought that mistress lived here in the city, how is it that mistress knows so little of it?"

Zesshi frowned. "My position tends to keep me…elsewhere. When I am here, I work deep within the capitol, when I am not there, I am usually far away, if you want to know the truth, I've never in all my years, really taken the time to explore the city I call home."

"That makes sense, well those are something Justicar began," she said, and spat at the floor at the mention of his name, "he realized that breaking so many slaves required a legion unto itself, so he got the cardinals to establish a school for men and women to do what he does…did. Breakers go there to learn the trade, and to make sure they learn it well, fresh unbroken captives are brought in…being 'broken' by one is bad enough, but an entire class of men and women who hate you, revile you, and are solely focused on the humiliation and abuse needed to destroy you to the very core of your soul…turning you into a pliant plaything, an empty doll, a field laborer, a miner…the things they do there…" Aorli shuddered, "Meat supposes she is a lucky slave, mistress, that she did not end up there and that she was…was instead only broken by one…just one." Her voice trailed off and she slipped off the chair and down to her knees facing Zesshi.

"Meat will not forget her place again mistress, if that is your will, please do not punish her to harshly for sitting on a chair or smiling or talking without permission…please don't report her…please don't…" She shook where she knelt.

Climb was shaking with rage, but to his surprise Zesshi reached down to the girl's chin and tilted her up to bring their eyes to meet. "Sit in the chair Aorli. Its alright, but don't get sloppy, you step out of turn outside this room, and that idiot," she gestured to Climb, "will be unable to protect you." Zesshi's voice was kinder than Climb expected from the battle maniac, and he asked….

"What was that about?" Climb's face reflected his uncertainty as Aorli got slowly back into the chair and settled down.

"What do people with self-respect do when they're abused?" Zesshi asked.

"They…oh." Climb said as understanding dawned.

"You treat her like a person too readily and to easily, you insist she's not what she is and she gets…I don't know…her 'soul' back, and the next thing you know she back talks a guard, and then she ends up with her head on a spike on the wall over there." Zesshi said, pointing out the window to the city's walls. "I saw one of those yesterday, so unless you want her to end up that way, she can't forget for to long. Your little fantasy about getting her out on your own…don't even try to deny it Climb, I can see it all over your face, but it won't work, you'll get beaten up, she'll get killed, and that'll be on your head." Zesshi said sharply.

Climb looked down. "I know but…"

"But nothing. Unless you're strong, you can't do anything." Zesshi said flatly.

"Now take up your position, its' time to see if we can't beat some strength into that body of yours." She said bluntly and Climb grinned as he took up his stance.

Three seconds later he couldn't get up anymore and Aorli was pouring a healing potion down his throat.

"Congratulations Climb." Zesshi said as he lay there with his head in the elf girl's lap. "You lasted a full half second longer than your personal best." She grinned down at him and held the practice weapon on her shoulder, tapping it there in a rhythm as he thanked Aorli and got back up to his feet.

"I wish I could stay and talk, but I have some business to take care of, I'll be back in a day or two." Zesshi said as she waved behind her while she walked away and closed the door.

Zesshi did not come visit him the next day. Or the next.

That night he saw the orange blaze in the sky again in a different part of the city, but this time Aorli had taken away his sheets when she'd left, leaving no way down, so he could only watch as the sky burned at the edge of Kami Miyako.

_…Council Chambers of Kami Miyako…_

"All of them are dead!" Dominic raged and slammed his fist on the table.

"We know that, you thundering imbecile! We're all looking at the same damn report!" Berenice said in a way that was very unmatronly.

"An entire class of breakers, all of them…" Maximillian said in a disbelieving tone.

"And all those lost slaves too." Ginedine said with a shake of the head.

"Damn the slaves! We're talking about PEOPLE here!" Dominic snarled.

Zesshi leaned against the wall, bored and with her customarily neutral expression on her face, she traced her scythe lovingly as she listened to the cardinals speak.

"Well it's obvious what happened. The elves who escaped from the brothel are on a killing spree." Yvon said simply.

"Well, what do we do about it?" Dominic asked, forcing himself to avoid asking the question in a rage.

"What can we do, we've emptied the city of most of the military force while we prepare to send it north to reinforce the city of Ikari?" Maximillian asked unhappily.

"Well we need to do something," Yvon said with frustration, "We saw that invitation for the gathering in the Draconic Kingdom…to…what was it, 'Set the terms for war'…if we don't go, we'll look very bad, and if we're going to go, we have to leave tomorrow."

"Well just have the city guard ask for citizen volunteers, we can triple the guard if we create temporary positions and pay them a reasonable but not excessive sum." Berenice said.

"Sure, all we have to do is station them in all the places where elves are used, a motley band of elf whores with no training to speak of are no match for armed guards. And if they flee the city, well catching them in the country will be even easier." Dominic said smugly.

"Now, what do we know about this?" Yvon asked, flipping to another piece of paper.

"Seven former city guards sent north a few days ago, all found dead. Could the Sorcerer King have agents in our country already?" Ginedine asked.

"I expect so." Maximillian said firmly, "These weren't elite troops or anything, but they were soldiers of Kami Miyako, a cut above the norm, all of them were cut in half at the waist, it takes a monster to do that. We should set out more patrols along the route, otherwise have their bodies returned and properly buried, they died as soldiers for humanity fighting a monster, they deserve respect for that."

"Alright, we'll have to make sure we do that, and if it is possible, at least one of us should attend the funeral to pay our respects to the families. Is Raymond staying back, where is he today?" Berenice asked.

"I spoke to him earlier, he's having a bit of an upset stomach, he said he plans to depart with us, but he's staying on bed rest today, nothing requiring that a healing magic user be taken from their duties over." Yvon said.

"Alright, well that is everything, we should get going and pack for the trip." Dominic said with some annoyance in his voice as they stood together.

Zesshi was the last to leave, and when she did, she went to Raymond's home. It was a large but not an opulent manor, what you'd expect of a top tier official, she knocked on the door and waited, a moment later a dignified elderly butler answered the door. He recognized her, and immediately bowed before admitting her.

He was an elderly human with a thin gray mustache and a head of neatly trimmed silver hair. Despite his advanced age he was able to move briskly about the house, but Zesshi did not require him to escort her, "You are here to see master Raymond?" He asked reflexively.

"Of course." She said.

"He's in his bedchamber, do you require an escort?" He asked rhetorically, more out of routine than expectation.

"No, I know where he is." She said.

"Very good then ma'am, I leave it to you." He said and with a polite bow to end the conversation, he straightened up and went to supervise the other maids. Though she had never considered the matter before…now it stood stark and obvious. Raymond owned not a single elf slave of his own. Not one. His servants were all humans.

She walked up the stairs and enjoyed the smooth feel of the polished wood on the bannister and looked around, she'd been here a thousand times since he'd become a cardinal but never really appreciated the stark simplicity of the place. There wasn't a single unnecessary piece of furniture, a few paintings hung on the walls, but these were ones he'd done himself, they weren't half bad really, or so she thought of them herself, without pretending to know much about art, they looked nice.

He seemed to like the dark wood to shine, and to let copious amounts of light into his home, particles of dust hung suspended in the sunbeams as she passed down the walkway to his room, when she reached the thick cherrywood door, she knocked firmly in a way that only she could.

"Enter!" He called out and coughed.

Zesshi walked in and found a rare sight, Cardinal Raymond Zarg Lauransan…not working.

She closed the door behind him and pulled up a chair beside his bed.

"How are you Raymond?" She asked in a voice that was…well as warm as her voice ever was.

"I've seen better days." He said with a grimace, but I'll be fine, just a day of bed rest is all I need, I won't be getting buried tomorrow." He forced a thin smile.

"What brings you here today though, you look like you've got something on your mind?" He asked.

Zesshi didn't look at him. She sat horizontally to the bed and looked at the wall.

"What if I'd been born without power?" She asked.

"What?" Raymond asked, this was a surprise, and it showed on his face.

"What if I had been born without any power?" She asked, rephrasing her question.

He didn't answer.

"I met an elf…recently, she was taking care of Climb." Zesshi said.

"And?" Raymond asked.

"And she's weak, a slave, she's got a brand on her skin in a place that only the most intimate should see, and she was, until recently, being very badly abused." Zesshi said.

Raymond didn't say anything.

"…And I think she's my little sister. Well, half sister anyway." She said.

"Oh." Raymond said solemnly.

"I never gave any thought to this before, but…the elf king didn't only rape my mother. He's done the same to his own people for centuries. I wonder how many little brothers and little sisters, or big brothers and big sisters I have out there." She said.

"I met one, talked with Climb for a little while about her, he told me about how she spilled food on the floor, and then got down there to lick it up because that's what she thought he was telling her to do when he was offering to feed her while she was half starved. Can you imagine…what if you had a little sister…and that was how she was living?" Zesshi asked him.

She snapped her head to look him in the eyes.

Raymond said nothing.

"Well?" She asked him.

"I…" Raymond started to speak, then stopped. He thought, "Zesshi you've never cared about this before…what's going on?" He asked.

She looked at the wall again, there was a mirror there that they could both see hanging over a low dresser.

"Look at my face over there Raymond. What do you see?" She asked and touched her ears.

"I see you…" He said.

"And you see the face of your enemy." She said.

"I see that, and I see my father. Every single day I looked in the mirror, I saw the parts of my mother's kidnapper, her rapist, and every day she looked at me, I saw her remember what he did to her. I know she loved me, but at the same time, she hated half of me, and I hated it too." Her face turned angry, "When I was very little, I tried to cut off my own ears, did you know that?" She asked him.

"No…" He said gravely.

"Yes, I was pretty young, don't know my exact age it was so long ago, but I remember seeing her flinch at the sight of me once, and I remember how when, she would bathe me, she wouldn't wash my ears, she wouldn't touch them, it was the first part of myself I learned to wash. I didn't know what my…father, had done to her, I just thought my ears hurt her. I suppose I was kind of right…so one day I snuck into the kitchen and stole a knife, and I went over to a mirror just like that one, and I started to saw at them with the blade."

She gave him a smile that was a mixture of pain and pride and sorrow as she said that, "I was a tough girl, even at that age. I actually managed to get halfway through sawing off the first ear when she came home and found me standing on a chair, looking in the mirror, and cutting away despite how much it hurt, how slippery my hands were with my own blood, and despite how much I cried. She wasn't a Black Scripture for nothing though, and she snatched the knife away and took me to be healed immediately."

"I'm…sorry." He said, not knowing what else to say.

"I didn't do that again." She said, "But when I started seeing elf slaves with their ears cut, I actually envied them because if I had ears like that…or like yours, then my mother wouldn't flinch. I didn't think about how their mothers would flinch if they could see their children after that, at the mutilation that was forced on them, and I didn't wonder if anyone among them was…like me." Zesshi said, her voice becoming an empty monotone.

"But having met Aorli…I wonder how many others there are. So I have to ask you Raymond…what would you do, if you found out you had a baby sister…half starved, branded, licking food off the floor because she'd been humiliated, broken…abused, and the only difference between you and her is…you were born with power that made you useful?" She asked.

"So…what if I'd been born without any power or talent, would Dominic have hesitated to throw me to a breaker? Would Yvon have cared if I was chained to a bed in some brothel? Would Maximillian or Berenice have given a damn If I spent my life sweltering away in a mine because of who my father was? Would you have cared at all, if my mother hadn't cared first? If she'd wanted nothing to do with me, and I'd been born weak…where exactly do you think I'd be?" She asked him.

"I don't have a good answer for you…for any of that." Raymond said honestly. "I can't answer what ifs, all I can say is who you are, the savior of humanity, and for all your…bizarre ways of thinking, as I said years ago…our job is to protect humanity, and humanity includes you. I won't pretend our country has always done the best things, but its always been for the right reasons." He said.

"Savior of humanity" She said, "I suppose that is a fair point." She said. "But save it from what? Elves? Demihumans? Demons? Or its own worst impulses? And what about nonhumans? I'm not fully human either you know, and I never will be. Suppose we win everything in the next year, the elf king is killed, the Sorcerer King dies, the demihumans elsewhere are slaughtered, all the enemies of humanity are dead or slaves…do you think they'll forget these?" She asked as she pointed to where her half elven ears poked out from the place her hair failed to cover.

"What do you think will happen when they no longer need a trump card to play? I'd never thought about it before, but seeing the disposable way Aorli is treated…well…you either play a card and forget it, or you discard it and forget it…and now that I think about it…if you were me…would you want either end?" She asked.

She sighed and stood up when he didn't answer, but she could see that everything she'd said had bothered him, seemingly as much as it bothered her.

"Thanks for your time Raymond, sorry to bother you while you're sick, I'll let you get some rest, good luck in the Draconic Kingdom. I appreciate you listening, and I'll see you when I get back." She said, and with a wane smile, she walked out of his room, and saw the sun starting to set, it was a nice night for a walk, and besides…she had somewhere she wanted to be.

**AN: Well I hope you enjoyed this chapter, its been a blast to write this story, but the research for it is fucking brutal. I'll explain why after the entire story is done. Some of you, those with some knowledge in social work, psychology, etc. will probably already have guessed, and I can only hope I deal with these issues the way they deserve to be, and ask your forgiveness if I did not.**


	6. Sparks & Darkness

Zesshi Zetsumei, extra seat of the Black Scripture, guardian of the treasury…and very unhappy figure, had in her short time knowing Climb…and even shorter time knowing Aorli, experienced some rude awakenings. She returned to her quarters and stored her scythe and took up a sword she could comfortably conceal, and then she threw on a cloak with a hood that would hide her ears. It was cooler now in this time of year, so not an unusual look to be sure.

Thus attired, she walked through the streets of Kami Miyako. It was evening now, but it was a bustling city with many public businesses open well into the night. From across the street she saw a restaurant where a family of humans was sitting outside, the father of two children smiled and cut up meat on his children's plates while their mother poured milk, their own plates were ladled with food. She stopped where she stood and just…watched.

They were nicely dressed.

Zesshi's little sister was wearing nothing but a potato sack, and an old one stained with mold.

Their children were eating meat.

Zesshi's little sister thought she had to lick spilled porridge off a floor on all fours like a dog to get better than starvation rations.

The husband and wife would make love to one another, happily and contented, safe and warm.

Zesshi's little sister, if she was lucky, slept on cold stone and had probably never been with a man by choice.

Their children were safe from violence.

Zesshi's little sister could be beaten just to punish someone else.

That turned her thoughts to Climb. She'd never seen anyone defend an elf before. He was naïve, he was weak…brave…but weak, but he was stubborn about his morals…and his morals had him stand up for Zesshi's little sister, even if he hadn't known that was who she was. Raymond was arguably one of Zesshi's only friends, and if he even knew she had siblings…which she was sure he did…he certainly gave no indication that he cared about what happened to them.

She wondered how many other little sisters, little brothers, or other siblings she had rotting away in brothels, mines, work camps. There was a kind of…family there, all children of the same vile father…her country knew this…her country…knew…this…and didn't care.

She walked on, the family she'd seen wasn't guilty, they were just living there and having dinner. Zesshi's fury, however, did not dissipate. How many hours had she spent wondering which of her thoughts were influenced by who her father was? How many hours had she spent hating the parts of her that she could see, that she knew could only be his? She'd spat on the whole elven race and every bit of her heritage out of hatred for him, a hatred that … now in retrospect, she realized that the Slane Theocracy had carefully cultivated within her.

If she hated the elves, she could kill the elves, nothing that happened to them would matter to her! The sudden thought of such carefully thought out, cultivated hatred being put into her over year after year after year as she was forged into a weapon of humanity…she staggered back against the wall of a building as the thought formed in her mind.

They'd have set her up to kill her own siblings…and made her grateful for the chance. Was the carefully thought out desire for revenge for her mother's sake phony too? And what would they have done to her…with her…if she'd just been a powerless brat and her mother hadn't wanted her because of who made her? She pushed herself off the wall and kept walking, the darkness would be everywhere soon.

As she walked on, she came nearer to her destination, and the answer was obvious, she heard a feminine voice crying out. Her hand tensed around the handle of her sword, it was still a fair distance away, but it wasn't hard to know where her sense of hearing came from.

When she got outside, she looked around, this was not a wealthy part of Kami Miyako, it was the slums, nobody much cared what happened here. The dark covered the city like a blanket. She walked around the building, there was an alley there on one side, as well as a door to the rear of the building, private entrance for the management was her best guess, she followed the alley back to a sewer grate. She smirked, the underground of the city was a second home to her, aside from guarding the treasury, the nature of the secrecy surrounding her was such that she even frequently moved underground to avoid any possible interactions.

Now in retrospect…perhaps they just didn't want her thinking the thoughts she now had. Hearing that girl, seeing what they'd done to Aorli, she knew what they'd have had done with her…were it not for her mother, and the luck she'd had to have been born with power.

Her fist clenched around the sword again. She wondered if any of her siblings were in that building…but first she had to confirm the route. She knew the juncture points, she knew how to get where she wanted to go and avoid anyone she didn't want to be seen by. Idly she thought of how easily she could just…kill. She shook her head, that was different, this was personal, this was very…very personal.

When she'd confirmed her junction point in the system she returned the way she'd gone and carefully put the cover back into place, then she went to the front entrance and walked in. The place stank of sweat and alcohol and unwashed bodies on the main floor, up above that, she smelled sex, she tensed up again, but played along. She approached the counter and, deepening her voice and hiding her face, she asked for a room with a woman. She lay ten coppers out in front of her. The fat oafish pig of a man on the other side took the coins, reached under the desk, and pulled out two keys and handed them to her.

"Yer big one here's for the door to get in, yer small one there is fer the chains if yah want to move it around some, toy's will cost you twenty coppers, damaging it will cost you five silver, killing her one gold, and if she escapes you it's an automatic one gold fine whether we catch her or not, and it's two gold if we don't so…don't let her get away. This buys you an hour, you want more, it's five coppers more for every half hour." He said.

Zesshi took out thirty coppers and said, "For time."

He grunted and pointed to the stairs, "Up the stairs, down the hall, last door on the right."

Zesshi nodded and walked up the steps slowly and deliberately, she counted every one of them. She went down the hall to the right, counted the steps in that direction, then turned around, and went all the way to the left, to the room she had acquired.

She entered the room and found what she'd expected, secured to a dirty, stinking mattress in a tiny filthy room, was an elf woman who could only be described as … a living doll. She stared at nothing, she said nothing, the only indication of life was that she breathed.

Zesshi locked the door behind her and made a 'shhhh' noise and then threw back her hood, revealing what she was.

The 'doll' which had displayed no sense of so much as awareness, now wore a face of surprise and confusion.

"I assume you want to get out of here?" She asked.

The 'doll' woman nodded desperately as mad hope sprang into her eyes.

"Speak softly, how many others are in these rooms?" Zesshi asked.

"Twelve, including me." The 'living doll' said. "Am I really getting out of this living hell?" She asked.

Zesshi smirked. "Shortly." She said. "We're going to wait here for a bit, I need to do something first. I can unlock you now though, as long as you don't run."

The girl nodded, and Zesshi undid her chains, and the girl sat up.

Zesshi then began to press her ear to the floor, she listened for the motion of customers, the conversations she could catch, the sound of weapons. Nothing indicated that anybody here was a threat. She smirked again; nobody ever was…but…why take chances?

She then exited her room, walked across to the next room, turned the knob hard enough to break it, then entered and killed the man inside with a quick sword thrust to the neck. The woman he'd been on top of was about to shriek, but before she could, Zesshi covered her mouth. When she realized she was safe, Zesshi unchained her, and took the frightened girl back to the room Zesshi herself had rented. She repeated this process for room after room, killing the occupant, and moving the girl quickly down to the improvised 'safe' room. She had done this with several rooms before someone came up to a room she'd already 'emptied'. This was even easier, she moved behind them as they walked into the room, killed them quietly, then closed the room again, it guaranteed more 'quiet time' and after only a few minutes, she had emptied each one and had all the females crammed into one small room.

Zesshi closed the door behind her, the women wore nothing, if they could be said to wear anything, it was fear and confusion and hope on their faces. It infuriated Zesshi further, but she forced herself to remain calm.

"You have questions. I have no time to answer them. I do have time to give you instructions. You are to wait here. In a minute or two, you will hear shouts being cut off and screams dying before they're complete. When you don't hear anything, exit this room and come downstairs as quickly as you can, if you remain, you will burn to ashes with the rest of this place. I have a way to get you out, but I will not argue with anyone, if you resist, if you argue, if you fight, I will knock you out and someone else quieter will carry you. Am I understood?" She asked.

There were a series of uncomfortable nods made in unison.

"Good." Zesshi said and exited the room, she came down the stairs and took out her sword, she waited just long enough for someone to look surprised at the dual hair colored half elf woman…with a sword, coming down the stairs, and then she gave a cruel smile and moved with purpose. She targeted necks and lungs, she saw no reason to spare any lives as she dashed around the room, she was a blur, a whirlwind of death, it was not a fight so much as it was a massacre, blood flew from her sword, cast off from every slash and dripping from every slash, the battle maniac might not have been enjoying the fight…but she was enjoying the slaughter. Within a matter of a minute or two, nobody was left alive except for the piggish oaf behind the counter.

She approached him with slow, lithe footsteps as he backed himself away on the floor, back to the wall, Zesshi hopped the counter and landed silent as death, back on the floor, she traced her sword over the wooden floor, droplets of blood fell from it, and she smiled at the terror stricken face of the pig, his jowls flapped around as he tried and failed to form words.

Zesshi did not care to hear them, her sword flashed as she stood near, and he was gelded. He didn't realize it had happened for a moment, then the pain hit and his fat bloated fingers reached beyond his gut to try to clutch at his stolen manhood as if he could…what…stick it back together? She was idly curious as to just what his plan was, but she had other things to do. The sword flashed again and his throat was open before he could scream. Behind her, twelve naked elf women were looking in horror and fascination at the scene before them. There lay blood and body parts aplenty, cast off drops ran down walls and off of tables, yet blood and bodies aside, the mess was minimal, as if she'd simply strolled from table to table to end people.

She then yanked a set of keys off the oaf's corpse, tossed them to one girl and said, "Find the one for his office, go out the door to the back, and wait for me there, I am going to 'finish up' here." She said and took alcohol from the bar and began to douse everything. As she did this the women shuffled past as quickly as they could, some limp and bruised, but moving, nonetheless. When she was done, Zesshi took a candle and lit a few places around the brothel and went casually out the back way. As she'd instructed, they waited for her, and she led them down an alley, she lifted the sewer cap and said, "Get in. Be quick about it."

They were in no mood to argue, and within a handful of minutes, she was leading them well away, while the fire she'd lit began to draw shouts of alarm. That late, nobody was out much except for at places like that one, and in this part of town, nobody cared about much, that was certain. It was with practiced ease that Zesshi got the sewer cover open and dropped into the darkness below, urging the women behind her to follow her down. They might have had no idea where they were going, but anywhere was better than 'back'. The sewer system was large and complex, she was probably the only one who actually knew it well enough to navigate it without a map. It was also dark, with the only light coming from the moon or the sun that shone through the top of various grates, so you were constantly moving towards the light, no matter which way you went, and if you weren't doing that, then you were in darkness.

Rats were not the problem one might have expected, but they weren't unheard of, and the women behind her had to keep their lips bitten down on to keep from crying out as one scurried over their feet in the shadows, they were a confused and tangled mass of limbs and fear, blindly following the unusual rescuer.

There was no way for them to tell how long they'd been there, but Zesshi knew exactly how long it had been and where they now were, which is exactly where she wanted them to be. She climbed a short ladder and then listened, nobody, it was safe. She opened the top cover of the hole and crept out, one by one the slaves followed, and Zesshi replaced the cover and led them to her next checkpoint. There were no sewers that connected to this, she opened the large door and led the women inside, she rushed them deep within the building, all the way back to a smooth wall, and there she fiddled with a sconce, pulling down to reveal a hidden door, wondering for the thousandth time privately if this ancient place was the basis for all the terrible clichés of hidden doors in all the books she'd ever read that featured that trick. At least it served her purpose now…and so she led them through it, and when the last was had crossed its threshold, she shut the door behind her.

Then and only then did she take out her flint and send a spark to a candle she had taken from her pocket, and in this way, she led them down a long dark hallway. It seemed to be a mile long at least, and a continuous downward slope, leaving the women wondering how far underground they actually were.

She then came to another door, and opened it up, "Welcome to your 'temporary' home." She said and stepped aside.

The women entered. There were other elves inside, mostly women, but not a few men.

"You will be completely safe here, nobody comes here except for me, and nobody can hear you. It's rather…lacking in amenities." Zesshi said, "However it beats the breakers and the brothels I should think, eventually I'll be getting you out of here entirely."

"How soon is…eventually?" One of the women asked her hesitantly.

"As soon as I have some place better for you." Zesshi said, "However more than that, there are more of you to get out of here, and there are some…well…lets call them…final straws I guess I'm grasping at. I will return to provide you with food and water, there is a barrel to relieve yourself in…again…not much, but you'll have to make do, I am leaving you some candles to see by, but don't use them frivolously, people will get a little suspicious if I'm seen making a great many unusual purchases." Zesshi said firmly.

"I have to leave now, but I'll be returning periodically, just…be patient." She said with a sigh, "I honestly don't know how long you'll be down here, it'll be unpleasant, but would you prefer waiting back where I got you from for me to show up, like the ones still in more places like that?" She asked.

There was a great deal of head shaking.

"Good." Zesshi said and started to walk away.

"Excuse me…" One of the women from this evening's rescue said, the one Zesshi mentally called 'doll girl' for lack of a name.

"Yes?" Zesshi asked.

"I'd just like to know…what is your name?" Her voice quivered with awe as she asked it.

"Zesshi, Zesshi Zetsumei." She answered, and walked out, closing the door behind her and leaving them clad in darkness and candlelight, listening to a commonly shared chorus of relieved crying, as wet tears washed streaks of filth from dirtied flesh.

The night was not over for the extra seat of the Black Scripture, despite the fire raging on the far end of the city.

Zesshi went to the tower where she knew Climb to be, she had questions for him, things that…ate at her a bit. She didn't bother to knock, she simply opened the door and walked in, Climb was asleep when she did so, which was to be expected. She sparked a light and made tea, closed the door as it brewed.

She then went to the window and looked outside, her hands folded behind her back just at the base and she smiled at the now familiar orange glow. It gave her joy. Behind her she detected the scent of tea ready to drink, and she came over and poured two cups. It was only then that she went beside his bed…took a deep breath and shouted, "Oh no princess Renner is in danger!"

Climb leaped out of bed as fast as he could, only to be pushed right back down to it in midair by a well placed palm to the solar plexus that knocked the wind right out of him. "To late, she's dead again, as a bodyguard, you must always be ready to act at any time." Zesshi told him firmly, wagging her finger at him and looking for all the world like a firm disciplinarian.

Climb looked down. "My failure shames me." He said.

Zesshi shrugged, "You have to sleep sometime, and your waking instinct was good, I'm just better." She said fatalistically.

"You are." He admitted.

"Tea?" She offered.

"Well I'm awake now…" He said with a less than tired yawn.

"Right you are." She retorted smugly and sat down and began to drink.

Zesshi knew all about combat. She could kick Climb's ass ten thousand times without breaking either a sweat or a nail, she knew that. But this wasn't the same.

"So…are you sleeping with Aorli?" She asked bluntly.

Climb sputtered and choked on the tea he was drinking, slapping himself for a full minute on his chest as Zesshi quietly sipped her own.

"No." He said firmly when he could speak again.

"Why not?" Zesshi asked leaning forward and resting her chin in one hand. "Even though you're a prisoner, you're still a human, and you're considered a very important prisoner, I'm sure if you asked for her to warm your bed, they'd send her to you…so…why haven't you?" She asked archly.

Climb was blushing, but a look at Zesshi's face said he wasn't going to get away with not answering.

"You think she wouldn't be willing? You're nice to her. She'd trade away her body to keep from losing that. Hell you could make it a condition of her getting to eat scraps from your hand. So…why don't you act?" She asked curiously.

Climb looked at her expressionlessly. "Why are you asking these questions?" He asked her.

Zesshi thought about his question and said, "I was thinking that if I could understand why you don't do these things, maybe I'd understand more about those who do. Like that jailer she used to have, he had a wife at home, she was…I assume, willing. Yet he decided to use Aorli too and didn't care how she felt about that. So…why don't you act that way? Aren't you a human, aren't you better than elves, part of the race chosen by the gods?"

Zesshi's face and voice were neutral and curious, but underlying that was a tension, something was bothering her, and it ran deeper than how he treated Aorli. He took a sip of tea and dunked a biscuit into it when he set it down, then he took a bite of that as he gathered his thoughts, while Zesshi just sat there staring at him.

"Do you think I look down on you?" He asked.

That was a question she did not expect. "No." She answered.

"Do you think I look at your ears and feel hatred?" He asked.

She reflexively touched the place where her ears protruded slightly, self-conscious of what they meant for her country, her mother, and herself. After a moment she shook her head. "No." She said, "I'd know if you hated me, you're about as good at hiding your feelings as an ogre is at hiding on the plains."

"Should I?" He asked her further.

"It's what I expected, I'll admit, after all, you're a prisoner and I'm guarding you." She replied matter-of-factly.

Climb gave a casual shrug. "I'm here for my princess, when the time comes, I'll be leaving here, I'm perfectly safe in the meantime, you're just doing what you thought was right, you haven't been cruel to me, teasing aside, you've even helped make me a little bit stronger, a gift for which I am eternally grateful." He said, and stood to bow to her, before allowing himself to reclaim his seat.

"So no, I don't hate you, or your ears, and I'd never take advantage of a girl like Aorli, I wouldn't want to be treated that way, so why would I treat anyone else that way either?" He asked Zesshi curiously.

"Can I ask you something?" He said.

"Proceed." She replied.

"Would you?" He asked.

"Would I what?" She probed.

"If you just…wanted something, would you just take it, steal it?" He asked curiously.

"No, I'm no thief." She answered.

"OK, so when you hurt someone else, abuse someone else, just because they're weaker or more vulnerable, you're stealing something from them, a sense of security, significance, and worth. You sort of said it yourself when you were telling me to be careful about how I treated Aorli, she might get her 'soul' back, wasn't it?" He said, and took a slow breath with his eyes closed for a moment as he gathered his thoughts, "Her…spirit, was stolen from her by all that she was forced to endure, but unlike coins and objects, the spirit can be stolen from endlessly through constant abuse and degradation, it's stealing who a person is and who they could be, or should be, or would be. I lived a life that was far different from hers, but I know the feeling of her emptiness, and by treating her well I can give a little of herself back to her, and it costs me nothing to do it, so why wouldn't I? I am who I want to be…even if I'm not strong enough for my liking. What do I make worse…or better, by treating her as I would want to be treated in turn?" He asked. "I could never face my princess again, if I did any less."

He shook his head with absolute confidence in the gesture, and in his words, "So no, I won't take advantage of someone vulnerable, I don't hate your ears, or think you should be mistreated because of how you were born, it's not like you chose your father, and I don't think you're the type of person I could hate…. Maybe find annoying sometimes…maybe…frustrating…absolutely, but I can't picture hating you as you are. Battle maniac or not."

Zesshi looked at him with something akin to fury for just a moment…but it was obviously not directed at him, because when that moment passed, she stood and walked to the window and she felt her anger directed outwards.

"How long have you been here now?" She asked without looking back at him.

"I don't know…I guess I could tally up my crushing defeats and figure it at about one per day…what has it been a few weeks or so?" He said uncertainly.

"Maybe." She asked.

Whatever she was thinking, she shook it off and turned around and headed for the door. "Whatever happens, I can promise you will get home to your princess again. Just…don't do anything stupid." She added, and closed the door behind her, leaving only the sound of the flickering candle in the room with Climb. He reached out and crushed his fingers over the flame, and snuffed it out at the wick, then put himself back to bed, deciding to think no more of the bizarre conversation that evening.

**AN: Thanks for reading everybody, this has been a fun story to write and I'm really having fun with this one, some of it requires some research into some ugly topics, but honestly...I think the interplay between these characters works very well, there is a contrast between Climb & Zesshi in their power, experience, and also a similarity in their naive sort of innocence that is slowly being eroded. Plus, not to slam other authors...but Zesshi is an undiscovered gem of a character, I can think of only one other author who really put time into developing her properly, so I've enjoyed putting this one together. **

**If you want early access to all upcoming chapters, to offer story suggestions, and enjoy a positive and creative community of overlord fans, join us in the 'Overlord Fanfiction' server invite code is: /fjc8Bqe**


	7. Change & Hope

When Zesshi left Climb that night she returned to her private residence and went to her bed room, she undressed herself and stretched out, she looked at her bed…somewhat hatefully, not because she disliked it, but because, knowing what she now did, it felt like a tool of manipulation, or a bribe, it was one of her secret pleasures to lay her head on a cold pillow and let the bed warm up around her bare skin, but everything around her that spoke of her significance of position, now looked like just another means of controlling her. She lit a candle that she didn't really need, then lit another for good measure and set them both on the nightstand before her mirror.

She sat and looked at her reflection, thinking of her conversation with Raymond and her recent discussion with Climb, she thought of what Climb had said before, about Aorli…almost certainly her own half-sister, licking porridge of the stone floor, she thought about what Berenice had said, what Dominic had said. Last of all she thought about her own behavior. In her many years of life, she had always tried to conceal her ears, they were a sign of pain and hatred and the gift of a man she utterly reviled and longed to kill. Nobody around her had ever looked at them without contempt when they'd seen them. She wanted to forget that part of herself, her heritage, but then…so did everyone else. They wanted to forget that she was part elf, they wanted her to forget it to, and more, they wanted her to hate it if she remembered it at all…and everything put into context, so much of that had to have been deliberate in her upbringing, if not from her mother, then from her teachers and superiors who guided her as they saw fit, turning her into a weapon they could use. Perhaps not Raymond…but he was part of the system too.

As these thoughts spun around in her mind, she made a calculated choice. She pulled her hair up and held it close on each side of her head, then pulled the free portion back behind and bound it into a short ponytail at the center. It was the first time she'd seen her ears so openly displayed in…several human lifetimes. Not since she'd been able to hide them. It seemed strange, but it was a start.

_…Kami Miyako…Climb's 'Quarters'…_

Zesshi entered Climb's room as she usually did, albeit giving him a surprise when he saw the difference in her hair style.

"You look…different." He said cautiously.

"Good. That was the point." She said. "Now get moving, less talking, more running, dogs need their exercise." She said, and swung the door open hard enough to bend the hinges. She walked downstairs and came out just as Aorli was walking in.

"Good, you're here, go grab a pitcher of water and a cup and park yourself about forty feet past me in the direction the princess's dog here is running."

"Yes mistress!" Aorli said in a voice of sharp, crisp obedience, mindful of their location, and she dashed off to obey the command.

A few minutes later…Climb was running as fast as he could around the courtyard while Zesshi taunted him. Every time he passed where she stood, she'd swing a wooden practice sword at him, forcing him to dive, dodge, jump, roll, or otherwise evade…lest her vastly superior strength interrupt his momentum.

Aorli, for her part, stood beyond Zesshi by about forty feet with a pitcher of water and a cup, just where she'd been told…and 'if' Climb managed to avoid getting struck, she'd pour water for him, hold it out, let him drink it and continue. More than once she winced as a blow struck the stubborn blonde young man, but he continuously regained his momentum and ran another lap.

An hour later, Zesshi called a halt and then tossed him his sword, he hunched over, vomited, and huffed and puffed as Aorli scurried over with water to offer to him.

"Not yet." Zesshi said. "He has to fight first." She said, pointing her sword at Climb.

Climb held up his left hand to plead for a moment as he heaved for breath, and braced his upper body with his right hand on his right thigh. "I'll…need…just…a minute." He said.

A second later Zesshi's foot connected with his face and snapped him upright, staggered him back, and landed him on his ass. He shook his head in surprise and wiped the blood from his nose before looking at her in surprise.

Zesshi pointed her sword at Aorli. "She's going to die, are you going to ask her would be killer to give you a minute because you're tired?" She asked with venomous sarcasm.

"Fine, take your minute, I'll be busy." Zesshi said, and turned to face Aorli, whose face was suddenly contorted with fear. Zesshi took a step forward, a merciless aura came off her body as she swept the sword in front of her. "Don't…even…move, slave." Zesshi said to Aorli, whose feet became rooted to the ground, but could not stop the motion of her shaking.

Climb began to scramble up to his feet and dash for the sword she'd thrown to him.

"The ones out to kill everyone you want to protect won't WAIT for your convenience." She said and took another step. Her sword flashed out in front of her again.

"They will not care if you are tired. They will not care that you just finished running eight miles." She said and stepped forward again.

"You are the only thing between this girl and pain, she's an elf slave in Kami Miyako, nobody here gives a shit if I beat her to death right here, I'd only get reprimanded for not calling for clean up." She said and took another step forward. As she spoke, she scanned the courtyard, there were guards, nobles, priests…by the six there were priests aplenty here in the governmental heart of the city. Her voice was cold as ice as Climb managed to stumble over to the sword and snatch it from the dust.

"The gods chose human life didn't they?" She snapped out without looking behind her, she wasn't even fifteen feet now, Aorli was whimpering but didn't run, "They won't care if Aorli gets a broken jaw, broken legs, broken arms, nobody here will care, what are you going to do about it…nothing…because you 'need a minute', right?" She said.

"Please…no…mistress…" Aorli begged, Climb was already running before her sentence was over.

Zesshi stood in front of Aorli, who lowered her head subserviently, when Climb managed to slide on the ground past Zesshi, just as the Slane Theocracy's trump card raised up her practice sword, she looked around at all the watching faces, some of them looked smug, pleased, or…to her disgust…like they were barely hiding something more twisted. There were very few who looked to be sympathetic to the girl and nobody said anything or tried to interrupt. Zesshi brought the practice sword down just as Climb braced his blade over his head in front of Aorli. The 'crack' of wood to wood echoed throughout the courtyard off every wall, and Zesshi drew back the practice sword and gave a small smile of satisfaction as she saw the gritted teeth of a determined and angry Climb.

Zesshi stepped back and nodded in approval. "Well done Climb, you protected your charge…and here you thought you…what was it you said…needed a minute?"

"And you Aorli, nicely done." Zesshi said and approached, then patted her on her golden hair.

"Wait…what?" Climb asked in confusion.

Zesshi smirked, "You want to tell him Aorli?" She asked.

Aorli blushed a little but stammered out, "Ah, when she turned her back to you…she winked at me, it wasn't hard to figure out what she wanted, so I played along."

Climb fell on his back and Aorli hurriedly brought him water. "Why is it that no matter where I go, the women I meet seemed set on tormenting me in some way?"

"You'd have figured it out for yourself you know, if you had only paused to think." Zesshi scolded as Aorli helped him rise up and move to lean against a wall to drink. "You've known me for a little while now, and should have known I'm not going to beat up on a helpless slave girl to punish you for your weakness. But you are emotional, given to react without thinking, it makes you gullible, easy to trick." Zesshi put the tip of the wooden sword under his chin and tilted his head up, "That is a weakness too. It wouldn't matter if you had the power of Gazef Stronoff, or myself, or that undead being that has the cardinals shitting their robes…if you are so easily tricked forever, that is just as big a failure as physical weakness, people can die of stupidity just as easily as they can of an arrow in the eye. You'd do well to remember that."

"Go get yourself washed up and have a bite to eat" She said as she pulled her practice sword away, "You're going to help me with something today and you need to be reasonably clean to do it, I'll see you a little later." She said and walked away, scanning the courtyard in disgust. There had been a second test done out there, and her city had failed it.

It wasn't for Zesshi to buy the things she needed, she was well paid for her work, though she rarely ever spent anything. Today however, she would be buying quite a bit…just not personally, first she visited her home and opened a chest filled with coins. She took out several sacks of various sizes meant to hold them and filled them one by one.

When she was done, she threw them into a backpack and went back to Climb's quarters. He was already dressed and finishing up a meal along with Aorli. Zesshi dropped the pack unceremoniously on the table.

She opened it up and took out a handful of coins. She handed them to Aorli and said, "Go to market, speak to no one but those who you must, buy one cheap magic black dye ball, and return here immediately."

"Yes mistress." She said, and took up the coins and scurried out the door without further asking.

Climb looked at her curiously.

"How do you feel about having black hair?" She asked.

"Ahhh…I don't know?" He said hesitatingly.

"Well you'll find out." She said. "I'm going to send you out onto the market, and you're going to go buy these things." She said and took out a sheet of paper and began to write things down.

She then slid the paper over to Climb who looked at it with skepticism.

"I'll be a good prisoner…but I'm not going to hurt my country or my princess." He said, "I won't help with military operations."

"Good." She said, "You have my word that this in no way will negatively impact your country or your loved ones in any way."

He gave a grave nod. "I will accept your word then."

"Good." She said simply.

"You will have those things delivered to the address I wrote there at the bottom, you are to pay for them all up front, and you are to answer no questions about who ordered them or what for, you're going to be a good dog and play fetch for me, having those supplies delivered tonight. And I swear Climb, if you inform anybody of this…losing the trust I've granted you will not be the worst thing to happen." A dark fury swirled from her as he felt her killing intent, it was…powerful…but nothing near what Sebas was able to manage. However, he wanted to reassure her, regardless of whether she sought to intimidate him or not.

So, he nodded. "I won't break faith with you." He said. "You don't need to threaten me, if you could have had anyone else do this, I am sure you would have, since you're using me, it must be personal, private, and important, so I'll stay silent." He said firmly.

A few minutes later Aorli returned and laid the dye on the table.

"Use it, Climb." Zesshi said.

A moment later his blonde hair was black as night, his blonde hair stood out so much that he now looked like a completely different person.

"Go, get to it, I have questions for Aorli." She said, and Climb took up the pack and walked out.

Aorli knelt in front of Zesshi and waited patiently as she heard the tone of master over slave in the voice of the half elf.

"Get up Aorli." Zesshi said quietly.

Aorli stood up.

"Sit." She commanded.

Aorli began to get back down on the floor, only to be stopped by a sudden touch of Zesshi's hand and a suddenly, very briefly, distressed look before the careful neutral expression restored itself. "In the chair." Zesshi said, sternly but gently correcting her.

"What does the mistress wish to know?" Aorli said demurely and uncertainly.

Zesshi sighed, "You can relax for the moment, no more of that 'mistress' crap." She said, "Climb is not here to give a lesson to." She added, and Aorli visibly relaxed.

"First…you remember what I said about you perhaps being my half-sister, don't you?" Zesshi asked.

"I do…Zesshi…but I assumed…at first, you were simply teasing me or…tormenting me with the passing thought that I might have family, alive and are still free and will remain so…" She said softly.

"Why would you think that?" Zesshi asked.

"Because you hate elves, you said you rejected everything about us because of your father…my father too, I think." She said softly.

"Do you still think that?" Zesshi asked.

"No mistre- Zesshi, having come to know you better, you might seem it on the outside, but you're not one for petty cruelty on the weak. But…until this morning, I didn't think it mattered to you even if it were true." She said.

"How so?" Zesshi asked.

"You winked at me before tricking Climb into thinking he had to protect me. If I meant nothing to you…if you…if you…hated me for my birth, if you were like the rest who just wanted me to suffer, serve, and eventually die, then you wouldn't have alerted me of the trick, or it might not have even been a trick, maybe you would have actually hit me. If you thought I was your sister and just," she looked away from Zesshi's heterochromatic eyes as they pierced her own, "didn't want me to be, you could have had me sent away and replaced and forgotten me, or you could have just disposed of me, you're obviously important here, and I'm not even counted as a person here."

Aorli jerked her head back to face Zesshi and said, "None of that happened…and now…you've shown these," she reached out, and reverentially touched Zesshi's half elven ears that were now completely, exposed and on display, Zesshi started to flinch away, but then put herself back into the position she was in, allowing the touch that had been briefly pulled back when she moved away from Aorli's hand. Her half-sister's hands touched the hateful appendages gently, yet Zesshi was reminded of the time she'd taken a knife to them because of the pain she thought she was at fault for in her mother's eyes. This however, was different, not in all her life had she simply 'permitted' anyone to do this, the touch was kind, familial, and Aorli did not linger long there, instead she pulled her hands away and finished by saying… "so, I know that no matter how much you hate 'our father' you … don't … hate … your sister!" She said joyously and pushed herself off the chair and heaved herself forward to hug Zesshi as tight as her weak and powerless arms could.

Zesshi was, as far as she knew, the most powerful fighter in the world, she could have avoided the embrace in a hundred different ways, but she chose not to do this, she allowed the girl to leap on her, she hadn't held anyone but the wounded or the dying in a very long time, but this she let happen, and gradually folded her arms around the young elf girl.

Zesshi was not one to cry, and she did not do so now. That, however, did not stop Aorli's eyes from emptying themselves dry.

When she was quiet again, Zesshi gently got the girl to be seated once again and said, "I never knew I even had family other than my mother…if I'd known I had…siblings, brothers and sisters, and that I was helping all the cruelty over them…"

Aorli shook her head, "No. Don't." She said, "It seems in your own odd way, you were kept more isolated than Climb, always out far away, fighting and never seeing anything else, raised in isolation to be their weapon, they molded you into what they wanted and played on your thirst for revenge. But that isn't who you have to be, you have a choice…you're not a…" she paused and touched the collar at her neck, and the place on her thigh where the brand was hidden by the cheap sack that served as her clothing, "a slave, like me. You can leave all this, you don't have to do what they say, you can be as free as you want to be." She said with urgency and envy in her voice.

Zesshi shook her head. "No. I can't. Not knowing what I know now, not having seen what I was blind to before, and for better or worse this is my mother's country and I do have…I think…friends here." She said.

"And maybe this place is worth…more than what it appears. Maybe it can fix itself if given the right motivation. I know Cardinal Raymond, he's a good friend, if I really push the issue, maybe he can make changes." She said hopefully.

Aorli looked doubtful.

"Look, you stay here, I'm going to go out and pick up some…nice food, for us." Zesshi said, giving a wan smile to Aorli's doubtful expression.

She sat patiently at least, and Zesshi walked out of the tower. A few minutes later felt a gnawing hunger, and decided to get…just a little nibble on her way to a restaurant to order more to take with her. She approached a vendor and took out a coin and pointed to meat on a stick. "Two of those." She said.

He looked at her ears and shook his head. "Not for you there aren't. I don't serve your kind here." He said bluntly.

"My … kind?" Zesshi asked.

"Elf brats. Get away from my shop." He said in a nasty tone of voice. Zesshi remembered Aorli's doubtful expression, and she throttled the impulse to punish the vendor, and patiently went from one to the next, trying to buy something to eat. Had she been a famous figure, even with her ears it might have been possible, but without an evident uniform on and being a more 'secretive' member who spent her life largely hidden away, as far as anyone else knew, she was just some random half elf who was very much unwelcome anywhere she went within Kami Miyako.

She kept her temper down and in check however, until the eleventh restaurant had turned her away at the door. "Damnit I have good coin to spend and I support this country like anyone else does, when you say 'my kind' you're talking about a fellow citizen!" She snarled out angrily.

The owner, a largish, brawny looking man who might have been considered intimidating to his neighbors, approached her and said, "I said I don't serve your kind here, no elf brats, go somewhere else." He said with hate in his voice.

"I've been to ten other places so far…" She began, her temper beginning to slip out.

"Then make it twelve or go home elf bitch, but you won't get served here." He said, and put his hand on her shoulder.

It was large, it was meaty, it was muscled. Zesshi looked at it, and looked up at him. "You're going to want to remove that if you want to ever jerk off with it again you insect." Zesshi snarled.

He laughed.

His hand was also…nothing.

She grabbed. She squeezed. He screamed.

The bones in his fingers were crushed almost to powder in her grip.

He tried to pull back, to take her advice to remove his hand from her, but the chance to do so lightly was gone from him, she stared at him with fury in her heterochromatic eyes and she started to bend his hand, snapping it at the wrist.

She spat in his face, "Keep your food, I'm sure its as disgusting as you are anyway." She walked away, leaving him collapsed on his knees at the front door, screaming for help.

Nobody barred her way as she left, but after an hour or so of wandering and failed shopping, a handful of city guards approached her.

They spread out to bar her path. "You're in my way. Is there a reason?" She asked.

The guard, a rough looking fellow with a scar that split cross ways on his nose, nodded. "There is, we've had reports of an elf brat harassing restaurants, and that she attacked and injured a restaurant owner, you fit her description. So I'm afraid you have to come with us."

She eyed the men in front of her. "Must", she said in a voice of ice, "Is not a word you get to use with me. I have harassed no one, I attacked no one, now you will get out of my way, or you will be thankful I've decided to let you live to regret it."

She did not unleash her killing intent, she waited to see what he would do, she moved back a few paces to allow them to walk around her easily if they chose. But the guard who had spoken yelled, "Fucking elf brat's got a weapon, get her!"

It wasn't even a fight, she crushed breastplates, broke arms, hands, and legs, and left them tangled together in an ugly and undignified heap. The doubtful expression of Aroli made perfect sense now, she could shop all day and never buy a single thing successfully.

She rolled her eyes, she surmised her past successes had been due to either shopping abroad, being with theocracy members, or hiding her ears so it was not obvious she was of elven ancestry.

Now, open and exposed, there was no hiding it and no security from her uniform.

She looked at the broken pile of guards and approached one who was still conscious. She yanked his head up to look her in the face, "You stupid, stupid man. You have no idea what you've done today, be grateful you get to live through it, but know this, I serve the cardinals directly, and when they return, well if you and your idiot friends are still in armor in this city by then, I can promise you you'll be on the front lines against the undead before the first monster steps over the border. Tell that to your idiot friends when they wake up and be glad, I don't have a reason to kill you…yet." She said and spat into his terrified face before dropping her grip on his hair and disappearing down an alleyway.

Thoroughly annoyed, Zesshi returned to the tower where Climb was kept and found him having already returned.

"All done." He said and handed Zesshi the receipt for his purchases as well as all remaining coins. "I had to tip generously, but they promised an evening delivery to the warehouse you specified. Also, Aorli mentioned you'd gone out for food and hadn't come back, so I went back out and picked up some too…I used some of the coin you gave me for that though, I hope you don't mind." He added somewhat sheepishly as he laid out an array of various containers with freshly cooked meat, vegetables, and soup.

Zesshi fumed. "You're a foreigner, a goddamn prisoner here, I'm a Black Scripture war veteran who lives as humanity's trump card….I couldn't even get a goddamn sausage with the coin my own country pays me."

"You're surprised?" Aorli asked.

"You're half elf, half human, so not many of either will accept you." She said softly.

Zesshi sat mute and miserable at the table, thanking Climb briefly for what he'd done, but in no mood to converse.

That evening she went to the address where her supplies were to be delivered and opened the warehouse for the cart full of materials. Shrouded by fading light and a hood over her head, the workers barely paid attention to her, when it was done, she tipped them a few extra coins and waited until they were gone. After they were out of hearing range…a considerable distance for her, she opened one of the crates and took out a number of sets of clothing and threw them into a her pack, she then rushed to the temple, through the secret door, and all the way to where the elves were staying. There were candles lit in the darkness and the barrel they'd been relieving themselves into had to be emptied, she handed out several sets of clothing and had them follow her.

Back through the sewers they went, all the way to the warehouse, She hastily had them unload as much as they could, and lead them back to where the others were staying. It was trivially easy with her superior senses to know if there was anyone near to be wary of, and after considerable trips the impromptu laborers had unloaded food, low-grade beer, additional clothing, and other necessary supplies.

There were questions, expressions of gratitude, and more thrown her way, but she had little time for those things, she gave guidance on where in the multiple rooms of the unused treasury they could safely dump the barrel, as there was one small sewer grate off of what might have been an office at some point in the mysterious past, but otherwise took no further time among her…'guests'.

She had other things to do.

The next day the city was abuzz with the story of the killer stalking the streets of Kami Miyako, and rumors of a secret elf insurrection. Zesshi grinned to herself, the last one she'd killed had been a fat noble using elf domestic labor for more than just cooking and cleaning. Those elves were now hidden in the massive underground complex as well.

A new routine emerged for her after that. In the morning she would spend time with Climb and get used to having a little sister, the fury would build as she looked at the dingy sack that Aorli was forced to wear, she would train Climb violently, and he'd show…tiny improvements, here and there. Aorli would attend, but Zesshi seldom sent her out for anything except hair dye for Climb for another supply run. In the evening, after leaving them both, she would go out and…hunt. Establishments that had elf slaves kicked up their security of course. But what was that to her?

She snickered as she walked out of another blood-soaked house with two female elves…and a half elf baby boy. She'd been especially brutal with that man in particular; she'd left him hanging upside down by his feet and bleeding from orifices that used to be the source of his greatest pleasures. It had not…been…quick.

She could easily kill two or three a night in the massive city, and find time to scout another location, and every day the stories of the serial killer…or…the elf resistance, depending on who you spoke with…grew and grew. Guards were out in force both outside the city and within it, for all the good it did, Kami Miyako was simply too large, and the city had too many elves and…to her undying rage, half-elves, serving in various menial roles, to guard it all.

She would go out and about sometimes in the day and try to involve herself in her city in small ways, buying goods or eating out or even sitting and watching people pass by, but all she got in return was scorn and occasional harassment from a guard who said someone reported an elf criminal sizing up victims and telling her to go back where she came from.

By the time the cardinals returned from the Draconic Kingdom, she was a woman without a country, at least in her own mind.

Their return was the cause for a meeting to be scheduled for the following day, and for once in all her time in the Theocracy, she was glad that a meeting was taking place, and to prepare for it, she actually took the time to read the reports that were sent to her home.

She picked up the one labeled the 'Draconic Accords'. She read through the list, or started to, she saw the prohibitions against the very behavior that had created her, that had all but shattered her mother's life, that had abused Aorli…some of it she was only able to make sense of because she was the guardian of the treasury, and could readily conclude that at least one of the items down there was a world item.

She held the document as one would a beloved child. If she did not hunt that night, tomorrow she could appeal to the fulfillment of the document in her hands and see Aorli free and her country restored to what she'd seen it as before, or at least the beginnings of it.

She smiled at the slowly setting sun she could see through the window.

"Tomorrow is going to be a wonderful day." Zesshi said to herself as she got to her feet and went to go have a meal with Climb.


	8. Betrayal at the Table

**AN: You'll note that there is some exact and nearly exact textual overlap between some of this and 'God Rising' C61 & C62. The reason…if it wasn't obvious, is because the stories are now overlapping as this one has caught up, and you're going to see what plays out here. If you enjoy this story, please feel free to join my discord community, invite visible next to my profile image, OR just go to discord and search for 'Overlord Fanfiction'. If you want to support the author…well I don't take money myself, but you can donate to my charitable organization, bdgiving dot org.**

**OK, let's begin:**

_…Kami Miyako…Climb's 'Quarters'…The day of the Cardinal's return from the Draconic Kingdom…_

Zesshi had come to see him a lot lately, probably because she was expecting to leave him soon, he'd come to think she actually rather liked him, kind of like how 'Blue Rose' did, like he was a kid brother or something, well but considered utterly hopeless and occasionally maddening. Their weeks had become a pleasant routine, she'd come in, teach him something, kick his ass, heal him, they would talk, they would drink, she would give him something else to learn, and then it would happen again, it was always that way when they were alone.

Their time together was actually...enjoyable, though it helped knowing he was keeping his princess safe, and though he had come to trust Zesshi, he was not willing to reveal that he had an easy way out or was still seeing the princess...or all the other things he'd learned.

This evening was like most others, and when she'd helped him to his feet and to get seated in a chair, she'd slid him the healing potion and, in a few moments, he was good as new. He broke out the wine and poured her a full cup and himself a half of one.

"Can I ask you something?" Climb asked.

"Please." She said, waving her cup in front of her invitingly.

"Why do you do it?" He asked her.

"Do what?" She asked in turn.

"Why do you want to be 'humanity's defender' and all that?" He asked.

"Why do you defend the princess?" She asked him.

"She's the world to me, she saved my life, nursed me back to health, she's given me everything. Of course, I will offer everything in return." He answered incredulously.

"What makes you think it's not the same for me?" She asked. "Father is an elf king, he made me by an act of rape, kidnapping and abusing my mother, the Theocracy rescued her, she bore me, birthed me, raised me, and they trained me and gave ME everything." She said. "You know all these things already...so why are you asking now?" She asked curiously.

"Seems to me that they're just using you." He said. He looked away a moment and said, "I've got a window up here, I can see down there, I've seen how when you walk by, people don't look at you, or if they do, it's only to avoid you, how they stop and talk when you have moved on, nobody seems to ask you anything about yourself, I've seen camaraderie, I've had camaraderie...it's just...who are your comrades?" He asked in confusion.

Zesshi was shocked into silence and thought about it for a time.

"If you have to think about it..." he began.

"Who are yours!" She snapped at him.

"First there was Gazef Stronoff, but there is also Brain Unglaus and all of Blue Rose." He said unhesitatingly.

"Oh...well...Raymond and I are very close." She said.

"Does he ever propose a change to the religion, you know, one that says elves are people too, so you're not considered halfway inferior?" Climb asked.

"Well, no... but he is a Cardinal, remember. He has his obligations to the gods." She said.

"Comrades...true comrades...wouldn't hate half of who their friends are, you can't have half a person, you get all of who they are...or none of them. Didn't you say something like that to me once? I can understand why you'd say it, but you were talking about your...sort of your...whole country. So... why don't you go ask Raymond about that, ask him directly how he sees you and your elven heritage? Wouldn't you want to know if he really is a comrade or not?" He asked.

Zesshi didn't answer, she looked down at her cup and quietly topped it off.

"You said once that you didn't know if you were truly brave or not, since you always won every fight you were going into and you knew before it happened that it was inevitable that you would win. So... here's a different kind of fight, test your courage there." Climb said simply.

"Alright..." She said softly and left without another word.

_...Office of Raymond...Slane Theocracy..._

Zesshi was just about to knock on the door to Raymond's office when the voices gave her pause.

"You really want to let the elf king rape human women as the price for his help?" Raymond's muffled voice said.

"You can't have qualms about it NOW, we already made the agreement." Dominic's voice answered, "And if we get another one like Zesshi out of it, well it's for the greater good! Why can't you see that?!" Dominic shouted.

"Because we're talking about an act the god's themselves abhorred, something so sickeningly wrong that even the undead expressly moved to prohibit it! And what do we say to them? How do we tell Zesshi that we can't let her kill her father until he's at least raped his way across the Holy Kingdom for us first, or that we might not even let her try at all if it turns out we can easily take away any women he impregnates. How do we tell her mother, one of our own scripture seats, that we're endorsing what was done to her?!" Raymond snapped.

"Your fondness for the half elf is tainting your thinking!" Dominic snapped.

"No! My value of my COMRADE is keeping my thinking clear! She'd never forgive us for this, and I wouldn't blame her, I blame myself for letting us get dragged this far into this monstrous agreement. What good is an army if we trade away our humanity! This won't end well for us! You mark me!" Raymond snapped.

"Blasphemer! Anything done for the faith cannot be sinful! Anything to ensure that our gods reign supreme and their worship and their servants are not threatened, must be acceptable or we are all done for!" Dominic shouted. "Why did you even ask me here?!" He snapped.

"I hoped in private you'd be able to keep your temper and see sense...but you didn't, now get out of my office!" Raymond snapped. Dominic walked away and reached for the handle, "You mark me Raymond, if we do things your way, there will be nothing left of us, we're battling monsters, so we must fight as they fight or we will be no more. "We'll kill the boy in the tower, and the princess for good measure, we'll use the soldiers of a mismanaged Re-Estize to reclaim E-Rantel, and in thirty years when we're retired, you'll swallow your pride and say I was right all along." Dominic said rapidly and angrily, until the end when he laughed.

"Everything will be fine, don't worry, the gods will it." Dominic said, and he exited the room. Zesshi however, was not seen, she had concealed herself to eavesdrop, and was displeased with much of what she'd heard.

She considered entering to speak with Raymond...but instead...decided she had somewhere else to be and began the walk back to the tower where Climb was no doubt swinging his practice sword.

Zesshi returned to Climb's room and closed the door behind her.

"They're going to kill you." She said bluntly.

Climb stopped swinging his sword at the target and set it down.

"Say what!?" He asked.

"I said, they're going to kill you. And your princess." She said.

"And you're here to do it?" He asked with resignation.

Zesshi approached in a quick stride of several loud clicking steps of boot over stone and slapped him hard across the face.

"No, you ass. You kept your word every single step of the way with me and…" She paused. "I'm not going to kill one of my only friends." She said.

He smiled as he rubbed his cheek. "You just about did with that slap." He said. "That'll leave a mark for a while."

Zesshi rolled her eyes, "I don't know when they plan to do it, but it will probably be soon, I read through the reports I got today after their return, if this 'Philip' fellow doesn't already have the throne, he will soon, and that means the royal family of Re-Estize is done for. If they're done for, then there is no reason at all to not kill the princess, and even less reason to keep you alive, so unless something changes, I give you a few weeks alive here at most before they do you in." She said urgently, and a knock came at the door.

"Enter." Zesshi said, and Aorli walked in, she glanced down the stairs behind her, as if wondering if anyone was listening.

"Mistress, there is an emergency meeting called by the cardinals, pushed up from yesterday to discuss the serial killings and the fires, they would like you to attend." She said softly with her eyes downcast.

Zesshi's blood boiled as she watched her little sister, still barefoot in a potato sack, lower her eyes to the floor, but she suppressed her outrage and as the message conveyed to her hit home, she smiled and touched her breast where within the pocket, her copy of the Draconic Accords sat neatly folded. That paper in her pocket held her heart's desire. It would free her little sister. It would end the practice that had destroyed her mother and ruined…or defined her life.

"Climb, go ahead and get some rest, we'll speak when I come tomorrow, Aorli, just lay low for a bit." Zesshi said and walked out the door.

Her brow furrowed as she walked down the stairs, Dominic was a Cardinal, but he wasn't the only one. Raymond would side with her, that much she had already confirmed by what she'd overheard.

She made the trip to the inner sanctuary where the Cardinals just seated themselves after they finished cleaning the room.

She leaned up against the wall, folded her arms over her chest and put the bottom of her left foot against the wall as well, for all the world she was as casual as could be.

Her hairstyle drew some shocked looks, however.

She could see a few wanted to comment on it, however before they could, Dominic slapped a document down on the table and exploded. "Seven brothels…all patrons dead…all slaves…gone! Thirty-seven murdered, some brutally…all slaves…gone! Four holding facilities burned down…all slaves…GONE! And on top of that, there have been thirteen dead guards, and twice as many people missing…just since we've been away!" He shouted.

"Calm yourself, you hot headed buffoon. You already made us look bad in the Draconic Kingdom, don't do it privately too." Ginedine said with exasperation.

"The real question isn't how many dead there are, but who is doing all this?" Raymond said reasonably.

"Elf slaves?" Berenice suggested.

"Hiding where?" Raymond asked pointedly.

"What do you mean?" Maximillian asked uncertainly.

"Look, it simply cannot be an elf or group of elves in the city." Raymond said, and before they could object, he raised his hand to stop them, "Hear me out, this is a very large city, however a group of elves of sufficient size simply couldn't hide here indefinitely, and with all the damage and destruction and death they're dealing out, people will be looking for elves. It seems to me that it is far more likely that we have human agents here." Raymond said.

"Such as…Black Justice." Yvon said with a dark expression.

"We all know how they feel about elf slavery, they've liberated thousands upon thousands of them, Neia Baraja burned Wenmark to cinders though given what rumors swirled around about that place…" Raymond let a shudder express his thoughts on the matter, and Zesshi watched with interest and an internally smug sense of satisfaction as they cluelessly discussed the killer, while the killer was in their midst.

"It wouldn't be beyond imagining for one or more, perhaps a whole squad of them, infiltrated our city just to cause chaos and panic, humans blend in, there are abandoned homes, or the Sorcerer King might have agents here providing a safe house for them. This is the unit that wiped out the Gray Scripture, this is the unit that led a riot to bring down the government of Prart, we cannot underestimate their devotion to their cause or their ability to see it to its end." Raymond said.

"OK, fine," Dominic said, "Say it is a handful of these 'elites'. They're going around, freeing elf slaves here like they did in the Holy Kingdom. So now they're here…so…how do we catch them? How do we end this threat?" Dominic said, reining in his temper for long enough to ask the question, perhaps more even tempered now that a solution had been proposed. Zesshi looked at him with hate carefully hidden with a mask of boredom. She touched the precious document in her breast pocket.

"You already have your answer." Zesshi said bluntly.

She rarely bothered to say much in these things, though it was her right to do so because…who was going to stop humanity's trump card.

"You? You mean?" Maximillian asked curiously, "I'm sure you could defeat them, but how will you find them?" He asked.

"No." She said, "I mean this." She said, and she lovingly took her copy of the Draconic Accords and set it on the table, her heart pounded in her chest.

"You all signed this, it means no slavery for prisoners of war, no more raping or torturing of captives, this ends all the things that gives the killer their motivations in this city." She said, "Do that, and…I'm no military strategist, just a battle maniac, but I know motivation when I see it, and you deprive the ones responsible of their reason for the actions they're taking. Plus you're not acting out of fear, you signed this weeks ago." She said, trying her best to keep her voice passive as her heart pounded in her chest and she scanned their faces.

"All this really means is acknowledging that elves are people…" She started to say, only to be interrupted by Dominic snatching the copy of the document from the table and tearing it in half, then tearing those halves in half, and throwing it on the floor. He pounded on the table and snapped out, "Elves are NOT people! They're a subhuman race that doesn't deserve to exist outside of chains, only marginally better than demihumans! You should know, look at your father!" Dominic's face burned with wrath.

Months ago, Zesshi might have thought nothing of that statement, now…the hypocrisy of it, knowing what humans were doing to elves they'd taken prisoner, having found that she had at least one suffering sibling…the hour was late now, Aorli would be shivering on a cold stone floor, and that was if a new prison commander didn't catch a look at her pretty face and give her a warm bed for a terrible price.

Her arms were folded over her chest and her fists clenched tight. She scanned the faces of the Theocracy members as she walked over and picked up the scraps of beautiful paper that Dominic had thrown on the floor, she got a look at all of them. The faces of Yvon and Maximillian looked like they had all the sympathy of a pile of rocks, Dominic's view was quite clear…but she looked at Raymond and Berenice, and saw…something different.

The room was silent for a moment, Raymond's eyes met Zesshi's and Zesshi's met his own. The half elf he saw as friend, comrade…even feeling, despite the age gap, as if she were a daughter, was in terrible pain, she clutched the paper in her hand very gently, as if she were a little girl whose kitten or puppy had been run over by a wagon, and she was looking at him as a such a child might to a parent, eyes pleading with him…"Please…fix it…fix it…make it better…" as she moved back to the wall, her gaze never left his own…and somewhere inside the youngest of the cardinals, something broke.

"I would like to propose we accept Zesshi's suggestion. I would further say that we should consider revising our doctrine, the elves were our allies in the past, if that had displeased the gods, we should have been punished for it, we were not.

"I second the motion." Berenice said. "I admit I was skeptical before, but look at these, these rules protect humanity too, it holds everyone accountable, and it gives us a military advantage, and what does it cost? We just let prisoners of war go and free slaves, the elf King is our ally now anyway, it would be a gesture of good will and a military advantage if we gave him more of his own people to fight for him."

Dominic snorted. "There is no debate here, they're worth too much in their labor, and the taxes on the sale of elves funds a good portion of our military budget…besides, the gods chose humans, not elves, therefore they only get to exist in chains or in graves, like everything else that isn't human. But fine, we'll vote."

Zesshi held her breath, this was her country, these were her peers, she'd served the Slane Theocracy loyally for longer than any of them had been alive, they couldn't deny her this. She did not dare to make a single gesture of nervousness or anxiety, she bit her tongue instead of her lip, she tasted blood, she'd broken its flesh. She gave no hint that it happened, she only stood and watched.

"Votes to enforce the Draconic Accords and free the captive elves as 'former prisoners of war'?" Dominic said.

"Nay." Yvon said.

"Aye." Berenice said.

"Nay." Maximillian said.

"Aye." Raymond said.

"Nay." Ginedine said.

"Nay." Dominic said. "That settles that question the way it should be, but just for good measure…vote for a revisiting of doctrine on the exclusive status of humanity as the chosen race of the divine?"

"Nay. And it was stupid to bring up." Yvon said angrily.

"Nay. And I second Yvon's opinion." Maximillian barked.

"Nay. While they are close to us, they are not us." Berenice said.

"Nay." Ginedine said, his voice obviously betraying that he was annoyed he even had to say it.

"Aye." Raymond said, "There is something wrong in our doctrine, and it needs to be addressed, I pray to the gods you all see it before it is too late." He said with some regret.

"And of course, nay." Dominic said smugly.

"Well, perhaps instead we impose some treatment standards on how they're to be handled, for example, at least prohibit sexual violence, that seems to be really setting the serial killer off, given how he burns down the brothels and kills all the customers." Zesshi said, forcing her voice to be reasonable as her heart tore apart inside her breast and rage began to fill the gap. "I've always been told that this war against them was to avenge my mother, I don't think she'd agree that raping more women does that." Zesshi said, keeping her tone carefully modulated as she strove to find the soul of her country among its leaders.

Dominic sighed as if he were bored with the whole affair. "If it gives us another trump card to play, it must be tolerated…even if it is…distasteful." He said as if he'd accidentally drunk old milk. "But fine, we vote." He said.

"Those in favor of prohibitions on this use for captured elf females?"

"Nay." Yvon said. "Those brothels are good business. It just doesn't make sense to close them."

"Nay." Maximillian said, "The soldiers of humanity should have some place to relax after all."

"Aye." Berenice said, "The gods abhorred that behavior, even the undead reviles it, we should too." Her voice was passionate and angry, the accords seemingly having gotten to her.

"Nay." Ginedine said pitilessly.

"And of course…Nay." Dominic said coldly, "What else would we do with them?"

"Aye." Raymond said, "Nobody deserves that…nobody." His voice was low and regretful, and he turned his eyes to Zesshi, and he watched as her eyes reflected utter heartbreak as the nation that raised her, utterly betrayed her. He could only see her agony for a moment, but in those heterochromatic eyes, what he saw would haunt him till his dying day, the feeling of the deepest of betrayals swept like a passing wind across her face, but if anyone saw it other than he, they gave no sign.

"That settles that." Dominic said with finality.

Zesshi pushed herself off the wall where she'd settled herself during the voting and she headed to the door.

"Where are you going?" Dominic asked curiously.

"I'm just going to throw this trash out." Zesshi said as her fist tightened around the shredded copy of the Draconic Accords, "We don't need it anymore, right?" She asked.

"No, definitely not, I'm actually glad to have it out of here, it was like it was infecting the place. Damn the undead and all its worthless words." He said venomously.

"Yes, truly worthless words, and worthless trash." She repeated his words back to him, "I think I'm done for the night too." She said, sounding exceedingly bored.

She walked out of the room and closed the door behind her, she moved quickly but not dramatically so, it was a needless precaution, nobody was around to bother her, she rushed out, and when she was in the cover of night she leaped up to a nearby rooftop and ran along the top of it, she jumped from one to another until she was atop the wall overlooking the city. The moon was bright in the sky, so much so that it didn't even require the use of her elf senses to see the pieces of the paper, the Draconic Accords, it would have freed her little sister, it would have kept the horror, the atrocity that had made her, from being a routine and made it a crime, and they had torn it up in front of her and thrown it on the floor like garbage, and as she saw it…they'd thrown her away with it.

She thought of what Climb had said, "They can't have half of you…it's all, or it's none." Or something like that. He was right, they'd made their choice.

A guard pacing the wall saw her there, kneeling over the paper as if it were a fallen loved one, he lowered his halberd as he stepped carefully closer, "What're you doing here, this area is off limits." He said as he came closer, then he noticed her ears.

"Elf! No elves are allowed here, how'd you even get here?!" He snapped, suddenly on high alert.

She looked down at the paper as she took it up gently and began to put it back into her pocket piece by piece. "Oh, I know." She growled out, "I know…I'm not wanted here…I'm not welcome here…I have no home here…you're not my people…I know all that…now." When the last piece was put away she looked over her shoulder at the soldier, her eyes raw and red with pain.

"I'm not one of you, am I?" She asked as she stood.

"No, you're not." He said as the dangerous aura began to come off of her, he started backing away as he felt more nervous, looking around for someone to call out to for help.

"I should go, shouldn't I? I should leave you all and never come back." She said with ice in her voice as she walked closer to him.

"Yeah! Get out of here!" He said, putting false bravado into his voice.

"Fine." She said.

"What?" He asked.

"I said fine." She replied.

"Oh, good." He said.

"But you should leave the city first." She added.

"What?" He asked in confusion.

Then she moved towards him faster than he could respond to, caught him by the neck, and drew him towards the wall and pushed him over the edge. A few moments later there was a sickening thud, and she saw he did not move, he was very…very dead.

Zesshi went home that night and thought it over, she contemplated killing all the cardinals…well…except for Raymond, and perhaps Berenice. But as she considered the matter further, it occurred to her that it wasn't real revenge to do that…not right away at least.

She looked over on the wall across from her bed, she saw the Slane Theocracy banner she'd hung there, she approached it, looked at it, long and hard she stared at its intricate work, and she spat on it. "No…first…first I take everything from you." She said softly, and then she grabbed it and violently ripped it off the wall and tore it into pieces.

There were four more murders and eight more 'escaped' slaves that night before Zesshi Zetsumei went to sleep, but when she did finally sleep, she slept very…very peacefully.


	9. Revelations

The next few weeks were heady ones for Zesshi Zetsumei, she was spending the fortune she'd saved on supplies for her ever growing body of escaped slaves, she was killing several times per night, the city was in a panic, and the only good news for the Theocracy seemed to be that 'King Philip' had won the crown and was being pushed to attack E-Rantel.

This made today a grave day, she'd spoken with Raymond a few times, and kept her voice as neutral as she could, but he knew her very well, and she was certain he knew she was inconsolable.

"I know, its bad, its very bad, and I'm sorry…but you know, I'm the youngest of the Cardinals, I can help influence replacements and…" on and on he'd gone, but none of it had mattered, but he did reveal what she'd expected.

"They're going to send the order to kill Climb today, and the rest of the hostages too, after they take E-Rantel." He said.

"I see. So the Theocracy is going to break its word?" She asked.

"I don't approve." He said.

"Are you going to resign?" She asked.

"No." He replied.

"Then you approve. You can't continue to hold that position knowing how they're behaving, you have to make a choice Raymond, you can't say you want to be a good man while you continue to be a party to the things that are happening. Saying you're voting 'yes or no' the right way doesn't mean anything on its own.

"You're still here." He said defensively.

She sighed, "I'm going to go." She got up and walked out and left his house.

She went to the tower where Climb was staying, and when she got to his room she said, "Today they're going to send me the order to kill you. Honestly I thought it would be sooner than this."

Climb had been in mid swing when she said that and Aorli had been pouring tea, but her words sent such a shockwave over them that Climb smacked the stone too hard and stung his hands, and Aorli over poured the tea and spilled several ounces of it over the table.

"I'm not surprised." He said flatly.

Aorli paled. "Sister you won't…?"

"No." Zesshi said angrily. "They made their choice, now its time I made mine. I'm getting you out of here Climb."

Climb set his practice sword aside and approached the table, he sat down and folded his hands in front of him on the table.

"I guess now I can say something." He said, "Please, be seated."

Zesshi and Aorli became confused, but Zesshi seated herself and Aorli passed out the cups and did the same.

"I'm not a prisoner really, or even a hostage." Climb said plainly. "I could have gotten out of here at any time. Even if you had tried to kill me, you wouldn't have even gotten close."

Zesshi looked at him with narrow eyes. "You…are not…that strong." She said with absolute confidence.

"No, I'm not." Climb answered and nodded in the affirmative, "Any doubt of that was answered in the constant beatdowns in training with you. However my body guard is very…very strong." He replied.

The two women looked at him in confusion. "You're going to have to explain that." Zesshi said.

"Easier to show you." Climb said and turned his head over his shoulder and said, "Pardon me, 'Shadow of Typhoeus' please stop Zesshi's attack, but don't kill her."

Silence was the answer.

"OK, Zesshi, try to kill me." He said, keeping his hands folded calmly on the table and looking her square in the eyes. "Do it." He said. "Trust me." He added.

She looked at Aorli and the two shared a mutual nod, and then Zesshi took her scythe in one hand and struck at him, point towards the center of the throat as hard as she could. It was stopped cold.

A shadowy pair of fingers held it in place.

"You have…got…to be…kidding…me." Zesshi said as the shadow swelled behind Climb into the shape of a very large monster.

"I've had him watching over me since I got here. What is more than that, many nights, my princess has come to visit me, all the locations of the hostages are known, and the Sorcerer King has planned on rescuing…if you want to call it that…all of us since the day we were taken, all he's been waiting for is the trap to be sprung in Re-Estize, which I suppose is any day now." Climb added.

"Wait a second…but…those guards really beat the living piss out of you…why…?" She looked at the shadow monster inquisitively.

"I asked about that, he said it was his job to protect my life, not my ass." Climb rolled his eyes, "Probably for the best. And it did pull me from the fire that time."

"Actually, that was me." Zesshi said, "How do you think I knew you'd been up to the second floor, or even that there was a second floor, do you think I'd ever visited one of those brothels?" She said archly.

Climb blushed at the thought of Zesshi visiting a brothel, and said, "Thank you for that."

Zesshi shrugged, "Call it a…big sister's job to look after annoying little brothers, cherry boy." She said with a laugh as he blushed once again.

"But…if you were going to help me escape…doesn't that make you a traitor to your country?" He asked, brushing off the 'cherry boy' comment this time.

"You'd really betray them for me?" He asked with surprise.

"And Aorli…and…some others." Zesshi said.

Her eyes went furious, "But I'm not the traitor, they betrayed me first, they betrayed me a long, long time ago, and what little they hadn't betrayed already, they betrayed the night they returned!" She said with a deep well of hatred boiling out in her voice. She forced herself to remain calm and relayed the events from start to finish…she told them everything. Killing the jailer and his wife over what was being done to Aorli, getting the guards reassigned to Ikari and then killing them on the way, the increased food for the half starved slaves, burning down the breaker facility and killing the students and the instructors and taking the slaves, burning down the brothels…destroying the holding facilities, and targeting individual owners who were especially vile…. She left nothing out as she relayed the story.

"So that is what all those supplies you kept having me purchase were for." Climb said with surprise. "It makes sense now."

"Yes. I'm the arsonist, I'm the serial killer, I'm all of it, and I reject this country as it has rejected me. I tried everything to help them see, if nothing else, what they were doing to me, only one of them really saw, the rest either didn't or didn't care, so fine, if that is the way they want it, so be it." She snarled out.

They were quiet for a short time and then Zesshi asked, "Are you able to contact your princess's ally, the Sorcerer King?" Zesshi asked.

"Me, no. Her, perhaps, but I have to wait until she comes here." He said, "And that isn't until dark."

"Can he?" She asked and pointed to the shadow.

"Can you?" Climb asked, looking backwards at the shadow on the floor behind him.

The shadow gave him a thumbs up along the length of the floor.

"I think that means yes." Climb said.

"OK, will he contact the Sorcerer King for me?" Zesshi asked.

The thumbs up did not appear.

"What if I've got a present he'll like a great deal?" She asked archly.

The shadow made no expression, but she felt the air change as if it were listening with great interest to what she had to say.

"Ask him how he'd feel about getting his hands on a world item." She said.

A minute later a gate opened in the tower, and Ainz Ooal Gown, the Sorcerer King, stepped into the room.

He bore with him an oppressive air of one who did not appreciate his time being wasted, and a lordly bearing in his massive frame that compelled deferential reverence and respect. Kneeling to the powerful had been made second nature to Aorli, and Climb was already aware from frequent talks with his mistress, Princess Renner, that this was the figure who was going to change the world, and whom she would serve, which meant that the Sorcerer King was her master, which made him…Climb's master by extension, and so he also knelt. Zesshi however, was not one for kneeling or for kings, but she could not deny what she felt from him as he walked with his marvelous staff and his rich and royal robes, though strangely there was a stain on this one…but more than that, she was seeking something from him, and so she bent the knee to him as well.

The gate closed behind him.

"You are Zesshi Zetsumei, trump card of the Slane Theocracy, of humanity itself as I have heard it…yet…you call upon me, the enemy of your nation, and offer me your submission and their greatest weapon? What a remarkable development." He said cryptically.

"Go ahead, tell your story." He said, and she relayed everything, she felt the oppressive rage build up as she described the mistreatment of the female elves, and the sister she did not know she had, Aorli lowered her head more deeply and moved into a prostrate posture.

"I see, they do not know much of loyalty it seems." He said, his tone suggesting that criticism was a death sentence.

Zesshi kept her head bowed under the weight of the pressure he exuded still, and added, "Your majesty, what you say is true for most of them, but not for all, there are among the cardinals, two who bear a conscience, one who saw the wounding of my heart and tried to ease my pain, he is a dear comrade, we fought many battles together, we laid down our lives for one another, and when I needed him during all this, he was there, even trying to change the very doctrine of his faith when he saw it made me to suffer and watch the suffering of my little sister. I offer you all my service, I offer you the treasures of the Theocracy, I offer you the wealth of my house right down to the tenpenny nails in the floorboards… and the floorboards, and my life to use as you see fit, if you but meet these trivial terms which are as nothing before your majesty." She said reverentially.

"What are your terms?" Ainz asked indulgently.

"The first is that you spare the lives and safety of the two cardinals, Raymond and Berenice." She said.

"Granted, the former may have a greater use, and though the stubbornness of the second does not appeal to me, it seems she is still worthy of life." Ainz answered. "What else?" He asked.

"I have saved and hidden many slaves over the time since my eyes were opened. I would see them escape this hell this very day, and given a chance to start anew, somewhere safe." She said.

"I already have land set aside for refugees. This is nothing to me, your request is granted, they will be given land, homes, and supplies to begin their lives over again, and they will have it before the sun rises tomorrow." He said majestically. "What else?" He asked.

"I would…include my little sister in this escape." She said fearfully.

"You wouldn't be worth having as a servant if you had so little loyalty to your family. I accept your condition; she will be transported out of here today." Ainz said casually.

"That all elf slaves be set free." She said.

Ainz shook his head, "I cannot accept that as a condition." Ainz answered.

She looked shocked, "But why sire?"

"Because that edict already exists, slavery is banned in every inch of territory I rule, your proposing it as a condition is redundant and unnecessary." He answered.

"I…had thought that something of an exaggeration. I had heard something like this, but always thought in the back of my mind…no…I am sorry your majesty, truly I have offended you by underestimating your nobility." She said softly.

"Think nothing of it, coming from here, I'd expect that doubt." He replied. "Now, what else?"

"Your majesty, I want a chance, a real chance, to kill my father." She answered, "He produced me by the rape of my mother, he destroyed our lives, and I long to end his life."

"I assume that would be the elf King?" He asked.

"Yes, your majesty." She answered.

"Do you intend to make him suffer before he dies? To regret his every choice that led him to being at your mercy?" Ainz asked curiously.

"I do sire." She said with a vicious tone of voice.

"Then I accept this condition, I have met him, and he has offended me. What is more, I will go one better. I will give you the means to raise rebellion in his own lands, you will take everything from him, before you strike him down." Ainz answered. "Does that appeal to you?" The Sorcerer King asked.

Zesshi smiled broadly, one could say she was beaming with joy. "Very much so, your majesty." She answered.

"Then is there anything else?" Ainz asked.

"Despite everything…I don't want to destroy all the humans…if it is not too much to ask, I would not like my actions to lead to the genocide of this nation." She asked.

"Accepted, I do not intend to exterminate it, though no doubt many will need to be severely punished for their choices, the people on the whole, who deserve to, will live and thrive in peace." Ainz answered. "Is there anything else?" He asked.

"Just…one more small thing sire." Zesshi said hopefully.

"Yes?" He asked.

"I want to fight a male strong enough to defeat me, and then I want to bear his children. He does not have to be human or elf…but that is my desire, which I pray you will forgive for its selfishness." She said.

"I can guarantee I have many loyal servants who could defeat you, some of them with great ease. However I would never betray their trust by ordering them to reproduce against their will, I can however, give you the opportunity to fight strong males, after that, it would be up to you to convince them to mate with you and produce a child." Ainz said.

"Even for a world item, you would not grant me that?" She asked with surprise.

"I am their king, their master, to do something like that would breach the trust they give to me, even if they would obey, and I know they would, I would never compel anyone to do something of that nature against their will." Ainz said, revulsion evident in his voice.

"I see…" Zesshi said sadly, "Well, it's still a better chance than I have ever had…and a ruler who doesn't see his subjects' bodies as toys and livestock would be worth the trade off of certainty. I accept your majesty's limitation." She said softly.

The oppressive aura faded away.

"Then take my hand, and rise from your knee as my servant, and you may fulfill your part of the bargain." He said to her.

Zesshi then took the hand of the Sorcerer King, she felt a vague sort of warmth from the invulnerable feeling bones.

She had knelt as a citizen of the Slane Theocracy, but as she stood, she rose up as a citizen of the Sorcerous Kingdom.

"It would be my very great pleasure, your majesty." Zesshi said gratefully.

The Sorcerer King reached into his pocket dimension and pulled out a pair of scrolls and handed them to her, go to where your hidden slaves are, and use this scroll, then go to where the world item and other treasures are, and use the other." He said.

"No need sire," Zesshi smiled a sweet and clever smile. "I am the guardian of the treasury, the ONLY guardian of the treasury, nobody else ever goes down there, and the complex underground is massive, I have been hiding the slaves just down the hall from the sacred treasures, and almost nobody else even knows the way in."

Ainz laughed heartily, "Oh, you're a clever one, hiding their stolen slaves with their sacred treasures, very good thinking Zesshi Zetsumei, very good indeed. Alright, go there promptly, but keep the second scroll, your home will be emptied of all that you desire to be taken with you, everything will be done as fast as you can move to where you need to go." Ainz said simply.

"But first…Climb, and…Aorli, wasn't it? Go through the gate behind me, you will be safe there." Ainz said.

They stood, and Aorli went and hugged Zesshi tightly, and felt a gentle squeeze in return, while Climb bowed to both the Sorcerer King and to Zesshi herself, and then entered the gate, after which Ainz walked through as well, taking them all into his home.

Zesshi, eager to do her part, rushed as fast as she could to the temple, through the secret door, and went all the way down into the treasury. When she opened the door in the dark room, the elves were waiting for her with pale, expectant faces.

"Its time to get you all out of here." She said and took out the scroll.

The message spell activated, and after the briefest of communications, a gate opened. "Go through here, and you will be safe, the hope of the elves…my king…is waiting for you there." She said softly.

"Are you not coming with us?" One of them asked her.

"I am." She said, "But I must work his majesty's will first, and see to the punishment of the Slane Theocracy to the highest degree."

That got approving smiles, which Zesshi returned, and she went down the hall to where the treasures lay, she walked in and took them off their displays, scooping them carelessly into her pack, thus making that cheap leather the most valuable single container in all the world she knew. She laughed in amusement at the thought, and went back to where the portal had formed, and tossed the pack through.

After she was done with that, she went to her home and opened the second scroll, a moment later a gate opened, and several goblins walked through. One of them approached her, "What're we takin here?" He asked in a professional and business like tone of voice.

"Everything." She said, just take that desk and chair last, I need to use it to write a note…also, leave the note I pin to the door…and the pin holding it there…and the door." She said, realizing that he might very well dismantle the whole house unless she was quite clear. The goblin nodded.

"You heard'er boys, get to it!" He snapped and they began to take paintings, chests, clothing, everything. Meanwhile Zesshi sat down to write. She took a deep breath and then penned the following missive.

"To the Cardinals of the Slane Theocracy, you may consider this my resignation now and forever from your ranks. I have served you loyally for many years, with unfailing courage and devotion, I fought and killed your enemies, and named them mine solely because they were yours, for I saw myself as one of your people, and you as mine, I had believed we were of one body, despite the misfortune of my birth.

Yet recent events in the last few months have shown me that…for almost all of you, this is not the case. I am no less an object to you than the females in the brothels, only I am…or was, a weapon, while those were only toys. I have realized that I was manipulated into hating people who were victims of the same man who abused my mother. Because I trusted you, I saw the elves of the elf kingdom as you wanted me to see them. Yet even as I did all this, you kept my little sister as a plaything to a monster in a jail, you dressed her in a moldy potato sack without even shoes to wear in winter, you starved her and broke her in terrible ways…and even for all that, I might have forgiven you for your ignorance.

However when the chance came to declare that I was one of you, by recognizing me as a person by recognizing all of what I am, you mocked the notion, when I moved to prohibit the act that made me, the act that made me hate myself, you openly spoke of encouraging more of it, and lusted with your greed for new weapons, for more of the torment my mother endured.

True comrades, brothers and sisters, accept the whole of one another. You cannot have half of Zesshi any more than I can have half of Raymond. It is all, or it is none, as you cannot halve someone without killing them. You have chosen therefore to have none of me.

Thus, I have concluded that I am fully betrayed, I have no place in this country, no future here, and I will never be a part of it. As you have chosen to betray my trust and my loyalty, I am joining with the Sorcerer King, he has accepted my fealty and I will give him everything, including that which you TRULY valued most."

~Never again yours,

Zesshi Zetsumi

Having written and pinned her note, she walked around the house and one by one, blew out the lights from the top floor to the bottom, she looked around at the bare and empty walls of her former home, certain she could never come back to it again, and then she looked over at the gate that was held for her, and snuffed the light out with her fingers, and walked through the gate without looking back into now darkened house.


	10. Epilogue

Enemy Mine

EPILOGUE

_…Nazarick…Guardians break room…_

"To think Lord Ainz could have planned so far ahead that he even got just the right boy kidnapped to corrupt the only weapon that the Theocracy had, draw her to our side, and bring with her a world item and all their finest armaments." Demiurge said.

"Truly the last of the supreme beings is the only one who could have done something like this." Albedo said, "He and he alone is fit to rule, as all those insects will soon learn." Her smile was radiant with joy.

"I could never have imagined it…and now…now we know who is responsible for what was done to me…and I can make them suffer." Shalltear said with a savage and hungry smile on her face.

"His strategies have such depth, I am in awe." Cocytus said softly and with great reverence.

"Yeah, Lord Ainz is the best." Aura said enthusiastically.

"Truly mein creator has no equal, I am proud that he is my father!" Pandora's Actor said enthusiastically.

"Yes, his victory through simple justice was beyond masterful, but I wonder…what does he plan to do next?" Sebas wondered in a voice of dignified reverence.

"As if we could even begin to guess." Demiurge said with frustration, "I am proud to serve him, yet it always leaves me feeling…inadequate."

This was met with a round of agreement, and as Yuri Alpha entered bearing various beverages, they took them one by one, and Albedo raised her cup and said, "Sasuga Ainz-Sama!"

"Sasuga Ainz-Sama!" They shouted in return and drank full of confidence and breathless anticipation.

_…Nazarick Sixth floor…_

Zesshi, Aorli, Climb, and the numerous elves found themselves standing on a great green hill overlooking a large lake, for all the world it seemed a paradise, and hovering above the water was Ainz Ooal Gown, the Sorcerer King.

"Welcome to my home, sadly you will not be staying here," he said, "I am sending you to a new land, where your lives can begin again, you will have land to farm, homes to live in, beds of your own…everything you need to have a dignified life, you will be considered citizens of my kingdom with all the rights that entails, which you will learn more about from one of my servants, and from those of your neighbors already there. So, let me say…congratulations on getting your future back." He turned to Shalltear who stood at the shore of the lake. "Open a gate, send them to the land we acquired from the Draconic Kingdom." He said.

"Yes, my lord." Shalltear said happily and opened the gate. Ainz gestured to the hole in reality, "Go, and enjoy your new lives." He said. The elves, already in awe at where they were and having escaped the nightmare of their lives, bowed deeply and began to walk through the portal presented to them.

Ainz looked to Zesshi, "I assume you want your sister to go there as well, for her safety?" He asked. She nodded, "May I have a moment though, sire?" She asked.

"Please." He said and gestured with a wave of his hand for her to proceed.

Zesshi was about to speak, but Aorli simply hugged her. "Thank you." She said with a radiant smile.

"And thank you." Zesshi said in return.

"Come see me, when it's all over." Aorli said sweetly as she stepped back and held on to the tips of Zesshi's fingers.

"I will." Zesshi said, and smiled back, and Aorli rushed through the gate with a wave behind her.

Ainz looked over to Climb. "It's time for you to return to your mistress. Princess Renner has missed you very badly, visits or no visits, and it would be cruel of me to keep you from a loyal servant, but you have played your part well, and I would be remiss if I did not reward you." Ainz said, "Is there anything you would like?" He asked.

"Prosperity for my people? Safety for my princess?" He asked uncertainly.

Ainz chuckled, "I'll do that anyway, well, think of something later, go back for now, she misses you." He said. "Shalltear, gate."

"As you say, my lord." Shalltear said, and the gate opened, and Climb bowed deeply to the Sorcerer King, and stepped through it, straight into the waiting arms of the princess, who stood ready to receive him.

Ainz turned to Zesshi, "You have done more for me than you know, by way of this gift, the item you provided me, 'Downfall of Castle & Country' has informed me of the answer to a long burning question. One I had very strong suspicions about, but until now, I could not have certainty over. For that you have the gratitude of the Sorcerer King, and I would like to begin fulfilling one of my promises to you right now." Ainz said, "Mare, please come over here."

Mare jumped down from the tree and scurried over to where Ainz was hovering, looked up at his lord, and asked, "How may I serve you my lord?"

"I want you to fight this woman, do not kill her, only defeat her." Ainz said, "You have no limits on what you use to do that, only ensure that she survives." Ainz elaborated.

"Of course, my lord, right away." He said and scurried over to twenty feet from Zesshi Zetsumei.

"Pardon me my lord…but…I cannot get pregnant by a girl." Zesshi said.

"I'm a boy." Mare said. "My creator just happened to want me to dress like this." He said.

"Oh." Zesshi said with her head cocked curiously. "Well, doesn't matter, even if you're young, you'll grow up, and I can wait." She said.

"Wait for what?" Mare asked.

"I'll tell you when you're older, Mare," Ainz said, making a mental note to remember to find someone to teach sex ed to the twins when they grew up a bit more, "for now, just fight her, and win for the glory of Nazarick!" He said grandly.

"Yes my lord!" Mare said, and Zesshi struck a fighting stance.

"Bring it on little guy!" She said, with real happiness on her face.

_…Resettlement lands of the Sorcerous Kingdom on the border of the Beastman Kingdom…_

When Aorli and the other elves found themselves on the other side of the gate, they found a dog woman waiting for them, she asked that they follow her, and she led them all to an amphitheater in an empty city. She gestured to the entrance and said, "Please seat yourselves." It took some time for them all to enter, and when it was done, the dog woman took the stage and began to explain where they were. It was the city of Forton, a former Draconic Kingdom city that had been purchased by the sorcerous kingdom…and gradually she explained where they now were in the world.

In the next few weeks after that, the elves were assigned to villages or city living according to their skills, with most being tasked to the villages, while leaving a small city population that served as a trade hub.

Thanks to the lack of hard feelings between the new elf settlers and the Beastman Kingdom, they were even able to exchange goods over their eastern border, albeit in small quantities with respect to both locations as they were still establishing themselves. Elves however, turned out to be excellent conservationists, and the small corps of Beastman merchants quickly found utility in hiring them as 'advisors' on how to restore the shattered environment that was still recovering from the devastation they had inflicted on themselves years before, and most of the surviving beastman villages had at least one elf advisor to the chief.

In turn however, some beastmen found that they could make a very good living working within the new elven city as guards, which with the permission of the Sorcerer King, was proudly rechristened as 'Zesshisa', meaning 'Zesshi's honor' in deference to their rescuer. Aorli found her feet within the city, regaining her will to speak, and her connection to their rescuer by blood and service gave her considerable influence over her community and allowed her…under some protest by herself, to rise within the government of the region. Eventually, she became a governor. And to her credit, she took the position very seriously, not wanting to disappoint her half sister, or the Sorcerer King by poor performance. The city in the years to come became a thriving metropolis and a major trade stop between the kingdoms, and during the war, would serve as the first stop for refugees of all kinds, though they could perhaps be forgiven if they were somewhat less generously inclined towards humans, and Zesshi herself would become a regular visitor as she sought out still more of her unknown brothers and sisters, giving the battle maniac a sense of satisfaction, and helping to ease the self hatred born of her origins, by way of the comfort of common experience and the warmth of knowing you are not rejected for reasons beyond your own control.

_…Kami Miyako…Slane Theocracy…_

When Zesshi didn't show up for meetings, nobody thought much of it. Truth is, she more or less did what she wanted, she was humanity's trump card and there was rarely any arguing with her. They just slid an order for her under her door on how to deal with Climb, and left it at that, after all, nobody would bother THAT house, and if the boy lived one more day as a result, it was of minor importance, which is to say…not at all.

But when she wasn't seen…by anyone, for a solid week, then people grew worried. At first, they had simply thought that with the killings stopped, she had sought out the perpetrator herself, found them, and it was either someone strong enough to mate with…or perhaps the killer was stronger and had ended her instead. That was a real concern, most of the members of Black Justice were unknown, which meant that by extension, how strong they were was also unknown, and it was cause enough for them to start investigating, beginning with the tower Climb had been kept in.

The boy Climb and the slave Aorli were nowhere to be found, and had not been there for quite some time, that much quickly became obvious. They'd not known because it was Zesshi herself who was tasked with minding him, and Aorli seemed to be a favored servant of the guardian of the treasury, and it was considered impossible for that weak gold capped fighter to outfight the Black Scripture's strongest member.

When it became evident that Zesshi was also missing, suspicions were aroused, and when Raymond went to her home, he found one corner of the envelope containing her instructions, still hanging part way out from under the door, he grew alarmed. He pounded on the solid wooden surface of the entrance and called for an answer, however none was forthcoming. He went around the side of the house and looked inside the windows, and what he saw was even more alarming.

Zesshi's house was always somewhat 'minimalist' she slept there, ate there, changed and bathed there, but it was never an overly furnished place, not filled with knickknacks or other materials of personal comfort, it was utilitarian to a fault, and yet now every room he could see, was completely empty. He rushed back to the door and took it down, hard, his time as a Black Scripture still with him as it flew in and hit the wall. He stepped through the threshold as the door bounced closed behind him, and he began calling her name and rushing from room to room on both floors, but everything was gone, as if nobody had ever lived there.

When he came back to the front door, that was when he saw the note. He tore it off the door and opened it, and he fell to his knees in shock and horror as he read its contents. He sighed and shook his head, he should not have been surprised by this, no… not in the least.

Still it was overwhelming, and he didn't move for a very long time, it was so long that the other Cardinals, who knew he had intended to go to her home, decided to go there as well, they however, fearing something must have befallen him as he had not returned, came escorted by guards. They found him still sitting there in the middle of the floor just beyond the front door, reading the letter again as if he could not believe or could not accept its contents.

They stared at him from outside for several minutes, he did not acknowledge their presence, Berenice was the first to approach, she walked through the broken door and knelt next to him. She put her hand to his cheek and turned him to face her, "Raymond…what is it?" She asked gravely.

He held the letter out to her, unable to read it aloud or speak its contents.

A moment later she collapsed beside him, one by one the other Cardinals, filled with fear and trepidation for what the scrap of paper said, approached and passed it from one to the next, and they were each in turn brought to their knees in shock and horror.

"It was her." Raymond said with absolute confidence, "She was the arsonist, she was the serial killer, she was the one freeing the slaves, and we're the ones who pushed her to that point! We introduced her to her baby sister, and we showed her how badly we could abuse the poor girl, we showed Zesshi that she was just an object, a weapon…and she herself wasn't a person to us and didn't really matter. Our country showed that she wasn't really a citizen, just a tolerated tool with no real place here, and we showed her what her fate would have been had she not been born powerful or to a mother who wanted her…we brought this on ourselves." He said with a grave and sorrowful voice, and her last words to him came rushing back…he'd thought when she said she was leaving then…she had meant she was leaving his house. Now, with the benefit of hindsight, he recognized that she was making a choice of loyalty, a moral choice, a choice he hadn't made, which she had all but begged him to do.

Whether he was speaking to the other Cardinals or simply to himself, even he didn't know for sure.

Dominic's eyes widened suddenly, "The treasury! The artifacts of the gods!" He shouted and moved to jump to his feet.

Raymond raised a hand, "Don't bother, they're long gone." He said.

"How do you…" Dominic began.

"It's in the letter, what did she say? What we 'truly' valued most. She packed up out of here, got Climb out, got her sister out, got the slaves out, and she stole everything, I'd hazard a guess that she was even hiding the slaves IN the treasury, knowing that she was the only one to ever go there." He shook his head in abject dejection.

Several of the cardinals were shaking, whether with fear or rage, Raymond didn't know.

"So…what do we do now?" Berenice asked.

To that…nobody had a good answer, only silence, which for once…included Dominic.

In the days after the theft of the treasury and the departure of Zesshi Zetsumi, the Cardinals put it about that the serial killer and arsonist had been a Black Justice operative who had been caught and killed while trying to escape, and since the killings and burnings had stopped, the population was generally willing to accept this, after all, what else would explain why those terrible events had ground to a halt.

The position of 'guardian of the treasury' was officially ended, as there was no more treasury left worth guarding, or at least none that merited a Black Scripture presence, and the elite unit of the Slane Theocracy became a pariah among the other scriptures for producing not one, but two traitors, first Clementine, and then Zesshi Zetsumei.

Philip's sudden defeat and the rescue of all hostages and the sudden advance of the Royal faction were greeted with alarm and consternation, and the mood of the senior leadership of the Slane Theocracy turned dark. Curfews were imposed on slave use within the city, and ever tightening security measures began to throttle public discussion, and Raymond fell into a deep depression that kept him almost completely bedridden, while Dominic became ever louder in his demands for more active scripture support for the military advances, and to argue for a Theocracy invasion of the Sorcerer King.

Ginedine had at first raged openly at the betrayal, furious beyond reason at what was lost and by whose hand it was taken…but for the brilliant mind bound to reason more than emotion, even the most intense of feelings must fade and critical thought must return to the fore. And so tried to fill the void left by Raymond's ability to reason, but the louder and louder rhetoric made his voice smaller and smaller, and he had to make more and more concessions in voting to Dominic, in exchange for smaller and smaller gains for his even tempered advice.

And as his brilliant mind had caught up with Raymond's thoughts, through both private reflection and by conversation alone on his visits to the home of his distraught colleague, he began to understand how things with Zesshi could have gone so very…very wrong, and to better understand what had happened, he began to make a habit of touring the slave dominated districts where most of their labor was used and found himself vomiting so often at what he saw that his walks in the area required him to go without eating for hours to minimize the sickness. He gradually began to argue for anti-cruelty laws…but found minimal success as the both the price of slaves had increased due to losses…and the hatred that filtered down from the top ranks of the Theocracy's government infected the popular sentiment.

Berenice became a silent figure at their meetings, her spirit almost completely broken by the revelation of her part, however minor, in the destruction of Zesshi's more than a century of loyalty to the Slane Theocracy, she longed for the means to go back and retract the words of her conversation with…her colleague, but as she could not take them back, she chose instead to simply stay silent, offering little in the way of debate and unable to fully participate as her mind was so focused on her own mistakes.

Yvon was filled with outrage at the events that had transpired, and aligned himself more and more with Dominic's way of thinking, voting with him in almost every measure that further punished the elves for Zesshi's departure with their sacred treasures.

Maximillian became less outspoken, but more resolute in the things he did say, and found himself drawn to the militancy of Dominic and the increasing militancy of Yvon. With Raymond almost entirely absent, Berenice inattentive, and Ginedine short of support, Maximillian's legal expertise was turned to weaponizing the law, an ability Dominic found…very useful.

…Because without the tempering voice of Raymond's reason, Dominic began to gradually get his way, conditions grew ever worse for the slaves, and the war fever in public became ever more vigorous and aggressive as more and more blame was put on the elves for the 'problems' that the entire nation was now experiencing…a shift that would have ever more profound consequences as the war raged on, and…

As god continued to rise.


	11. Afterward

If you read nothing else of this, scroll down to AN 3, but I believe it is worth your time to read the entirety.

AN 1: Thank you to those of you who read this far, this was truly a remarkable experience for me, and it has been a roller coaster of ups and downs as I dealt with a difficult subject matter as best I could. I threw hints in along the way about what this arc truly was, but one hint nobody seems to have gotten was with Aorli. Her name is an anagram of 'Liora' which in ancient Hebrew means 'God's gift of light to me' which is what she served as to Zesshi, illuminating starkly the darkness in which Zesshi herself had been not only lost, but blind to by her isolation and the calculated upbringing that made her a weapon against her own siblings. By connecting to her, she guided Zesshi away from the inner turmoil and self hatred, and into the beginnings of acceptance and…of course…to the service of the god rising over the new world in the form of Ainz Ooal Gown. It wasn't an obvious clue, but it was there, and I do that a lot with character names, places, and so on, little hints of mythology, history, word or name meanings, a few people pick up on some of these, and you don't need to get them to appreciate the story…but they're neat little Easter eggs for those who do.

AN 2: This story held considerable effort behind it, and I hope it shows, you see to write Zesshi properly I delved into the subject of the psychology of children born of sexual violence, how societies treated the victims, both mothers and the children themselves. The term 'elf brat' used as a slur on Zesshi was actually taken from the post WWII German culture's contempt that was heaped on the children born from sexual violence from the Soviet soldiers against German women, they called the children born from this 'Russian Brats'.

Such social responses are not unique to that country, a nation in the far east referred to such children as 'The dust of life' to name one of many other such examples.

Children born from these acts often feel a high degree of self hatred and self doubt, the part of the story where Zesshi talks about wondering what parts of her thinking came from her father, and the difficulty she faced with her mother always being reminded of her father, whenever she looked at her daughter is taken from something expressed by a real child of such an act.

Her isolation from her society, the contempt it heaped on her, the disregard for half of who she was, everything about this was written in such a way as to strive to create a realistic picture of a complex and often ignored character, and how they can come to terms with their own inner turmoil through acceptance and support.

AN 3: I realize that this was an emotional topic for some of my readers, and I hope I did it the justice that it truly deserved. _Any failure or defect found therein is entirely my responsibility_, and it could not even be this well done, however well done that may be…without the steadfast support of my beta readers in my discord server.

If you found this subject to be well handled and this story to be worth your time, I would ask that you please express this by donating to **bdgiving dot org**, as we strive to raise money for our annual Lucy Morgan Memorial Drive, this year in honor of a fallen friend, we will be using 100% of these funds to pay for the meals, materials, books, uniforms, and tuition for an entire class of secondary year school students at the Kasese Humanist school in Uganda.

Thank you to those of you who read this from beginning to end, and I hope to provide you with much more worth reading in the future.


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